Similar to "Take it or leave it"(i.e. "this is your only option") but with a more sardonic edge.

I think this comes from a special edition of the Gilbert Shelton cartoon strip "Fat Freddie's Cat", in which the eponymous character narrowly escapes a genetically modified death at the hands of a mad, well, furrier.

When you eat dirt for the first time and leave your family to build a shack in the woods