April 23 - Inner Monologue of the Picture of a Food Serving Pig on the Sign for a Barbecue Restaurant in the Deep South

Yes, I'm a pig, and yes, I'm carrying a piping hot covered platter of food. Yes, I'm smiling. And yes, of course, I know what's under that cover. We all do. It's pork. I know it's pork. I'm not stupid.
I know.
I also know that the other pigs call me a sellout for what I do and maybe they're right. But you know what else I am?
A survivor.
Way I see it, I've got a choice. We all do. I can either stick to some naive set of principles and end up in the smokehouse. Or I can grow up, see the world for how it is, work for the man, and live to see another day. Yeah, either way, it stinks but as long as I'm working, I'm alive. And in these circumstances, that ain't all bad.
The other pigs ask me how I live with myself. Believe me, it ain't easy. Do I hate myself? Part of me does, yeah. What do you expect? Even though I try to shut it all out, I am well aware of the fact that I am literally feeding my brothers and sisters to people. And as you can see, I'm doing it with a big old smile on my face, you know, I'm really hamming it up. Is that messed up? You bet your ass it is. Does it make me a bad little piggy? Maybe so, but I always tell the other pigs to back off, that I've got a sow and piglets to feed.
But you know what they say to me? They say, "Yeah, you're feeding your sow and piglets, all right--to the customers!"
But that's where they're wrong. The restaurant owners are good to me and my own. That's part of the deal. I serve up the food and they leave us alone and that's good enough for me. Seriously, I can either go into this job whole hog and take care of my family, or I can shy away from it and let someone else do it. Bottom line: Somebody's gotta bring home the bacon. And it may as well be me.