I invited my parents over for dinner for the first time last weekend. The whole situation got me thinking about Armin Meiwes and how he burnt that penis he was going to eat.
The tiny lies. The ones you tell the people you love in order to spare them a moment of pain. It is a well-meaning kind of thing that, over time, can snowball and inflate one’s sense of ability. One of the most important things you can have in your life is someone who will be honest with you. Although it might be hard to hear the truth, it will make you a better person in the long run. For example, I thought I was a pretty good cook when I was in my mid-20s. When I moved in with my then new partner, I decided to surprise her with my specialty: white-washed Chicken Fried Rice. She was nice enough to do the right thing and tell me it was horrible. I’ll never forget that; she said it was horrible. And she was right. It was horrible. The chicken was cooked far past well done; it was salty beyond belief due to the 2 cups of soy sauce dumped in it, and peas had the sweet taste of freezer burn.
I think this is where Armin Meiwes went wrong in his life. No one ever told him his sexual cannibalism fetish could lead him down the wrong path. Back in the halcyon days of 2001, Armin Meiwes, a German computer repair technician, achieved international notoriety for killing and eating a voluntary…
