What does this quote frome The Big Lebowski mean?!

What does this quote frome The Big Lebowski mean?

"sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you" my father and I are having an argument over this quote. He insists that it is the cowboy's accent, and that by "bar", he means "bear". My mother thinks that it is refrencing passing out on the bar and "eating bar" or something. What does he mean by that quote?

I do not believe this is to be taken literally. You cannot "eat the bar" much like you cannot "eat lead" but the two are both similar in that they are not to be taken literally.

"...the bar eats you" is a reference to having attempted a task so insurmountable that the individuals will to persevere was not great enough, and he succumbed to the task. The bar can be thought of as a metaphorical object; "set the bar high" and so forth.

You eating it, or it eating you plays off our own idea of power through a food chain. The one that does the eating ends up being the most powerful.

The reference your mother is thinking of is only backwards, and easily confused with this quote in The Big Lebowski. The correct reference is, "He ate the bar." This is backwards of what this themed metaphore means. You will generally hear that in the midwest only, and when someone is so drunk they drop their heads on the table as they pass out making a loud thump. It's hilarious.