I was enthusiastic about becoming a vegetarian. My understanding was that certain foods, such as corn and lima beans, could be mixed together to form complete sets of protein -- valuable proteins that would enable me to keep running my Unreal Tournament fan site without the frequent nausea and unconsciousness that accompanied my efforts to cease eating alltogether.

The first day without meat was fine. I had a craving for a hot dog shortly after lunch, but I ate some yougurt and then licked the aluminum foil lid until the cravings passed some thirty minutes later. Dinner consisted of what vegetarians call "quiche," which is pronounced "quiche." It's like a pie, but there's no meat, not even the obvious choice of bacon -- which seemed very strange to me.

By the third day the traffic on my Unreal Tournament fan site was up. I think this is because, possibly while I was feeling faint in the late morning, I replaced my webpage background pattern with a brilliantly tiled .png image of raw, tasty ground beef.

The sixth day was almost my worst. I had taken some tofu and mashed and kneeded it until it was roughly the shape of a turkey leg. Then I inserted a curling iron into it, to pretend it was a bone. I forgot it was on. Tasty, though. Worth the pain. I had seconds.

The seventh day I blacked out.

My eighth day as a vegetarian was my last. I awoke covered in foam that seemed to be eminating from my mouth. I crawled to a soup kitchen and stole a barbecue fork from a man wrapped in a garbage bag. As if in a dream I watched myself standing on a table threatening passers-by. "Meat!" I shouted. "Meat! Meat! Meat! Meat! ... Meat! Meat! Meat! MEAT! ... Meat!" A woman in white was serving soup. It was potato soup. They had no meat that day. I had a fork.

The woman in white was delicious.