“Pork chops and bacon, my two favorite animals.” — Homer Simpson

SO YOU’RE FEELING grouchy. You were hoping that Donald Trump was going to win, or at least that Dr. Carson would surge.

Oh, I’ve got you wrong? You’ve been worried about Hillary and her emails? Sad that Bobby Jindal is below zero?

It’s bad enough, isn’t it, that deer hunting season is starting, and a 16-year-old kid has a buck hanging in his back yard and you don’t, and they’ve passed a new law making it cool to use a silencer, but it doesn’t fit your gun, and your snobby neighbor got one for his .270 caliber Remington.

Oh Boobie, I know how you feel, and I wish I had some good news for you, maybe like that Hillary has a secret boyfriend at the motor vehicle department in Chappaqua, or Bernie Sanders missed his bar mitzvah and isn’t really Jewish at all. Cheap shots. Show some class.

But I do have something to give you that will put a real snarl on those old lips. If you’re like me, a Korean War vet, or of Vietnam or maybe even a survivor of Ronald Reagan’s Grenada, then this is really going to be the straw that broke John Boehner’s back.

The snotty Time magazine has featured on this week’s cover, a searing article penned by that snotty Time writer Jeffrey Kluger, announcing in capital letters that MEAT IS BAD FOR US … AGAIN.

He means all meat, not just beef, but pork, which means no barbecued pigs’ feet at the homecoming tailgating, and zero hot dogs this Fourth of July.

Leg of lamb? Forget the mint jelly. And here’s the one that really cuts us off at the knees. Top of the list, right up there in capital letters: BACON. That’s right, buddy — BACON.

We all came home from our various wars salivating for our childhood cheeseburgers and found out that while we were fighting for our country, our kids made them even more delectable by adding bacon.

We knew then and there that was what we were really fighting for. It wasn’t apple pie and Mom. It was BACON CHEESEBURGERS!

Now we’re told that bacon cheeseburgers will kill us. What’s a cheeseburger without bacon? It’s a PATTY WITH VELVEETA! How limp is that? Why not just surrender and start eating those girly burgers, the infamous veggie burgers that are made, I suspect, of grass, dandelion leaves and pieces of the box they came in.

But the greatest victim of this study? Wait for it, here it comes, grip your chair handles: THE BLT! What, may I ask, is a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich without the BACON? It’s a salad on toast.

The jeremiads about meat have started appearing almost annually now, like Christmas catalogs from Victoria’s Secret or Washington’s birthday car sales.

Whenever someone famous dies suddenly, the headlines seem to read, “Due to complications from an overdose of bacon.”

Our doctors, who warn us about taking care of ourselves, always blame smoking, lack of exercise and the flu, but never mention meat, because they are just like us, lunching on large Reubens with sauerkraut and Russian dressing on pumpernickel, washed down with a Stella. Be still my hungry heart.

Oh, we’ve always known that meat was bad for us; of course we did. But who in the real world was going to take that seriously? In addition, there is bad news now about Starbucks’ sugar drinks. But the red Christmas cups are in, so who cares?

I would imagine that 98 percent of you reading this are meat eaters. Of course you are. And if you’re my age, you grew up on hot dogs at the ball park and burgers on a dirty grill, and all of the things that included meat: chili, tacos, stews, hot dogs, Lebanese kibbeh, Chinese dim sum dumplings that were filled with yummy chunks of beef, chicken and pork.

You’re an American, buddy. You fish, hunt, drink Bud in excess, watch football and freeze-frame on the halftime cheerleaders, and especially, you eat meat with emphasis on bacon, all crispy, crackly and sweet. Frankly, I don’t care for Starbucks, but I have trouble imagining living in a world without Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra and bacon.

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.

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