Crime and Punishment

In case it is too early to notice the pattern, I’ve begun a game for myself (because I have that much time to kill) in which I name all (or at least most) of my blog posts after books I’ve read here, and somehow figure out how to write something that relates (even if only vaguely) to the title or the subject matter of the book.

“But Crime and Punishment?” you might ask. “Have you killed a man?” The answer is no, and at the same time, a resounding yes. I’ve killed the food lover in me.

My crime? I took for granted all the deliciously greasy fast food I could possibly ever eat. Yes, I’ve arrived in a country where the only fast food chain left is KFC (they were the only ones that stayed here through the civil war), but the closest one to us is in Maputo…

Adam and I have been struck with a craze; a craze only satiated by dreaming about those insta-meals we gave up upon arrival. We dream about it all, we spend long hours speaking of the fast food we are going to order when we get back. Culver’s butter burgers and concrete mixers haunt us like a fever; the Arby’s curly fries stalk our consciousness; the Subway turkey bacon ranch makes our mouths water as if we could taste it; Chipotle burritos bring sheer torture to our minds. Even a lowly sausage mcmuffin from McDonald’s makes us flinch with longing. Anything from Qdoba, smothered in cheese and sour cream brings pangs of mourning. A Chinese buffet would put us into a frenzy.

But it doesn’t just stop at fast food. We spend hours, days, wishing we could sit down at a restaurant with burgers and pizza, and to drink a cold IPA or stout, a wheat beer or amber ale, a porter or even a good ol’ fashioned pale ale. Perhaps all of those. But we have set our fate. We passed the threshold, and now our consciousness and sub-consciousness taunt us and torture us until we can go back and confess to our madness.