Give Vegetarians a Break

I always wanted to write about the President’s pardoned turkey at Thanksgiving.  It would follow “the chosen one” around on Black Friday, when his family, friends and everyone he had ever known had already started their venture through the Great Digestive Tract of America.  He would gobble around aimlessly, searching for a familiar feather, until he tragically realized he would have to spend the cold Virginia winter alone.
 
The story would either be an avant garde interpretation of Waiting for Godot or make the argument that turkeys are dumbest creatures alive.  Or maybe both.


Anyhow, I shared the idea with a carnivorous classmate the other day and he gasped in horror:

“How dare you!  You’re a vegetarian,” whispering my condition as if I had a third eyeball no one ever talked about.

Oh yeah.  I’m a vege-frickin-tarian.

The holidays are the tough for those in my situation.  Not because of temptation:  the crispy turkey skin, juicy ham slices or the over salted gravy.  Nope, it’s the attitude of salivating family members and friends that induce my suffering.

Last week's Thanksgiving is a perfect example.  Behind my back there were whispers and giggles as my thirty-something brothers tried to trick me into eating a bacon-filled tater tot.  I could feel my grandmother’s eyes rolling as I politely declined her craved cranberry chicken.  The most awkward moment though was the silence prior to grace, when the table for thirty was crowded and a snarky little cousin noted the lack of variety on my plate.

I get it.  I’m a little different.  But why am I such an inconvenience to you?

To be honest, I never wanted to be this way.  I grew up in Humboldt County, where countless transplants from southern California flock to harvest blond dreadlocks, trade showers for patchouli oil and get their cult years out of the way.  The vegetarians I knew always seemed bitter from iron deficiency, not to mention judgmental.

“You mean you don’t have a vegetarian option?!” they’d bark at a fifteen-year-old version of me, as I took their concession stand order at the drag races.

If you’re so enlightened, why are you are the racetrack? I’d think to myself before wrapping their tomato and pickle sandwich in a grease-stained sheet.  I have quite a harsh history with faux hippies.

Yes, I actually became an herbivore by accident.  A few years ago the meat just slipped away from my diet and never came back.  When I recognized the trend, I also realized my innards were happier, so I reluctantly decided to stick with it.

Surprisingly, the most difficult aspect about my diet change wasn't writing the break-up letter to Mr. Tri-Tip or bidding adieu to pork.  The hardest part was taking the criticisms from friends and strangers alike.  While mentioning my decision during dinner or prior to ordering at a restaurant, despiteful looks were all I received.  No one was excited about my seemingly minuscule diet change. 

It took my farm-raised parents a while to digest the news.  But in a loving effort to be new-age and supportive, my mom bought be some vitamins and my dad stocked the freezer with veggie burgers.

But my extended family and most of my friends are still choking on the idea.  It was funny at first, but it’s been a while and sprinkling Bacon Bits on my cereal isn’t as comical as it used to be.  They might as well swallow it whole and work on some new material.

So this holiday season, do me a favor and give your local vegetarian a break.  We’re not all PETA fanatics perfumed with patchouli.  Most of us are just like you, but with healthier colons.