Lost in thought
On my way to work this Monday, I passed by a cold store. This store was situated in the bus station where I normally catch my second bus to my work premises. This store had a banal name like most cold stores, but unlike most cold stores I had seen, this one had "wholesale and retail" attached to its name.
Every morning I would see men and women lugging slabs of meat to and from this shop. They would come with their [[Kia[1]]] motorcycle trucks and their silver stainless steel pans and move the meat away. I would normally look on unconcerned as I passed them to board the vehicle headed to work, the only thought in my head being that those carrying the pans do not slip and upend the contents of their pans onto my pristine white shirt.
An oddity caught my attention this Monday. I noticed a short man struggling with a frozen slab of cow meat. The carcass was huge; it was bigger than his torso, and there were people standing close by watching him struggle. None offered help or even said a word. Eventually, he got the meat onto his Kia[1] motorcycle truck and sped off on the blackened, bumpy road that led out of the station.
On that gigantic slab of cow's meat, and in what I hoped was permanent marker (not nail polish), were written the words "Rash". These letters set me thinking. What right did we have as a species to label carcasses?
Was the full name Rashida or Rashid?
If it was Rashid, would he have preferred his name to have been written in ink or nail polish?
Was that short man struggling with that stout piece of carcass Rashid?
Who will eat that part with the letters?
Will any of this (my observation, the short man's sweat, the ink or nail polish) affect the taste of the meat?
My conclusion: The cow is dead, the meat is not rotten, and I am late for work.
References
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