Red Meat Shuffle

You may have been -- but probably weren't -- as shocked as I was that I could eat red meat last Friday. This was important for me because I was having a little party and making that famous Fox family tradition, corned beef and cabbage. (In case you are wondering who the hell the Fox family is, that's my mom's side of the family. The side with all the drunks. Well, not all the drunks. Just most of the drunks. Although the Davis' are trying hard to keep up.)

Cardinal Roger Mahony, or rather Roger Cardinal Mahony because that's the stupidest title in the world, the Archbishop of Los Angeles granted a dispensation from the Lenten rules of observance. Catholics could eat meat on Friday. Why? Because they were likely to be drunk and served corned beef and since St. Patrick's Day fell on a Friday during Lent, it would make confessions on Saturday that much easier.

Now this is just stupid. What's the point of having rules if you ignore them for such stupid reasons. It's not like our dietary rules are that strict any way. Catholic fasting: two small meals and a sensible dinner with no snacks! Muslims go a whole month without eating in the sunlight and Catholic can barely manage to skip snacks!

I decided that maybe a lot of this Catholic thing is just bullshit. A bunch of made up crap designed to control people. I know what you are thinking, "duh!" How is it that I've gone this long without figuring this out? I need some help here. I'll call my mom. She's a good Catholic, right? She'll fight for one of His flock, right? Nope.

No unending pressure from her. No relentless badgering. I question 2,000 years of faith and religion and mom says, "you're probably right!"