The Gory Details (Gross)

Gory Detail #50 "Dog Food Dilemma"

You all know that, as dedicated to the desiccated truth as I am, the Gore Monger spends at least five minutes surfing the internet before each article looking for topical info. and or pictures of Brittany Spears bald (it's a fetish I guess???) Today, wanting to write an article on feedlots, I thought I'd look up an article I'd read a few years back about a truck carrying tons (tons mind you) of pig intestines had overturned on a narrow road. Very reasonably I thought, I typed in "truck," "overturned" and "pig". What I got was...well I'm in a happy place. Let's look at some of the headlines.

"Smithfield Foods Accident Leaves 25 Dead on the Highway." Pigs that is. PETA sued. Morons. The only thing I like better that pork chops is a PETA lawyer sandwich.

How 'bout this; "800 Baby Pigs Shut down Oklahoma Highway." In this case the truck was full of yearling pigs who bolted all up and down the highway when released. Can you image the poor cops trying to sort this one out. "Not me you asshole. Put the four legged pigs in the truck."

Or: "The truck, carrying around 25 tonnes of Danish pork overtuned in northern New South Wales." Okay. Let's sort this one out. 25 tonnes (that's metric kids) of pork turns over in a river in Australia. The problem, it's not cooked. That's so much meat it could foul the whole river as it rots or infect the river with whatever exotic Danish bacteria it's infected with. You know I had never worried about 25 tonnes of raw meat rotting in the local river but I will now.

Or this: "Frozen pigs all over the freeway!" In this case whole frozen pigs were dumped from the back of a truck. This one is actually kind of cool. Follow along. Pig/car ice hockey. A pair of underpasses could be the goal. Each player gets a smart car. Whichever one of you pushes the pig carcass under the other player's goal gets a point. I think it'll be bigger than mud wrestling.

Weirdly, some animal care organizations keep records of which states have the most farm animal on the highway accidents and how much destruction was done. What a bunch of Gore Mongers! I love these guys. They even had pictures. It is with a small tear of pride in my eye that I report that my home state of Kansas recorded as many incidents as almost any two other states. Even Texas.

While this seemingly boundless topic did return 103,000 result on Google, they drifted away after a while into stories about "the year of the pig" and "pig iron" I did still find a few that fed my fiendish appetites. For example, apparently since his little "biting" incident, Mike Tyson has been being mailed a steady supply of pig ears. I love that. There was also a guy whose truck ran off the road into the "pig pond." "Well, we got her running again but no one will ride with me on accounta' the upholstery smells like uncle Vern."

Having done all this background, I feel that my story is well grounded in the gore of the road.

One of the things that makes Topeka, my hometown, remarkable is the number of dog food manufacturers here abouts. This has to do with two facts, dog food manufacturers like to get their meat on the cheap and there are more feed lots around Kansas than anywhere else in the world.

Here's what happens. Makers of dog food show you the consumer commercials advertising "real" meat in their products. Then go looking for something they can call "meat," but they don't have to spend much money on. Now, at feed lots, tens of thousands of cows are crowded into a small space where they can't exercise as they are fattened up for slaughter. There's disease, gorings, drowning in the pond, heat prostration, freezing and all sort of other events that produce dead, unmarketable cows.

"Ah ha," says, the dog food manufacturer, "this is meat, and it's cheap." So thousands of pre-dead cows find their way into Topeka every year to be cooked down into treats for little Fido.

This is where the road part comes in. There are specially designed trucks to haul the dead-by-a-thousand-means bodies. They are dirty white high back two ton trucks with front loaders on them. As many as four or five cows can be loaded at once, lifted over the cab and dumped into the bed.

When full, bouncy cow legs and whatnots can be seen over the edge of the truck. When not completely full, they may pass unnoticed. In the summer however when the prairie sun is hot, they smell with a reek that overpowers air conditioners and launches vicious attacks on the stomach and bile ducts. It's heavenly.

What a great time I've had writing this article. Pigs on the highway; who knew?

Now get out there and write.

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