She Likes Coffee and I Like Tea

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He Ain't Heavy; He's My Brother: OR, an Essay on Being the Eldest AND Adopted

( So Much For That Writer's Block... )

Once again, PETA has missed the point.

Usually, the antics of PETA barely make a blip on the Nella Radar of worldly-going-ons. But as my brother has recently become a vegetarian, I've been getting snarky in regards to the bean and leafy greens set.

I am one of nature's omnivores in the broadest of senses--I'll eat ANYTHING, be it shit junk food or uber healthy vegan feed, because holy cow, I just love to eat. Meat? Boom baby! Tofu? Hell Yes. Vegetables? Load them on the plate. Fruits, nuts, and grains? Why hello there, delicious! Various fats and sugars that no man should put in their body? I'll regret it in the morning, and probably while I'm putting it in my mouth, but it's, er...part of the adventure?

Ok, so I've been trying to nix that last part out of my life--unsuccessfully--but the point is I would have been the crazy ass hunter gatherer who would have been looking at unidentified plant #637 and been thinking "Well, I saw a bird eat it once, and it didn't fall out of the sky right away."

But to the point. My brother has given up meat. And if he wasn't being so high and mighty obnoxious about it, I'd probably be happy for him. But as is my brother's want, he's gone and taking a perfectly reasonable lifestyle and make me want to bash him over the head with a frozen leg of lamb a la that Roald Dahl short story "Innocence of the Lamb" for it (GO READ IT NOW!! ONE DAY I WILL WRITE A STAGE ADAPTATION OF IT, AND IT WILL BE BETTER THAN HITCHCOCK'S!!!).

First off, he insists on repeating, over and over again, to us his family members that have to sit through this EVERY MEAL, that he finds meat "repulsive" and that he can't understand how anyone could stomach eating something that was "alive". And then he proceeds to complain about how he's tired of "Beans" and that my mother doesn't cook anything for him.

Ok, the repulsive I'll give him. I've move a rotten pig caress out of a blown up car in the dead heat of summer, meat IS repulsive, especially once the flies come. I get it. It turns your stomach. To each man his own, and mine is meaty, preferably fresh and grilled. However, since we've changed OUR diets to accommodate you--since you don't, you know, COOK FOR YOURSELF--how about you stop hating on the cooks, eh? We hear you every night. It gets old. Fast.

if you don't like mom's absolutely fabulous zucchini soup, how about YOU bust open a cook book and try to make something yourself? Christ, she's the one trying to at least make sure you're getting a balanced vegetarian diet, but you're the dumb ass who insists you don't need protein every day, and who still refuses to eat most of the vegetables she prepares. This woman has be jumping hoops for you since they brought you home, and as an 18 year old, you don't like what's cooking, MAN UP. Remember that story mom liked to tell, about how as a kid she hated lentil soup and refused to eat it, and grandma took her plate, dumped it over her head and sent her to bed without dinner? WHY we never did that to you while you were a child is beyond me. Who knows, as your older sister I may have to pick up the slack, do the world a favor and dump soup on your picky little head.

And in regards refusing to eat things that were "alive"--I've never seen my brother get more defensive and angry when I started pointing out (more like bullshitted, cause I don't think when I speak I just open my mouth and words come out) that that broccoli was once alive, growing to its full potential when it was cruelly plucked for our consumption, and that lemon, my GOD that LEMON had the potential to become a lemon TREE, but we denied it it's proper fate by using it to flavor our food, and that TOMATO, that tomato was the pride and joy of some--

At this point my brother punched me in the arm. And yes, I know comparing the harvesting of animals and plants is like comparing apples and oranges (OH WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE ORANGES!) but that's the problem with my brother. Every crusade he joins, every decision he makes he then uses to try and prove how better he is than my parents and myself. Like the time he decided all organized religion was inherently evil (we're catholic), or the time he was an anarchist (By God did I have fun ripping that apart!) I can respect honest belief and convictions. I can't abide holy-than-thou idiocy for the sake of holier-than-thou idiocy. And by God, if I wasn't put on this earth to knock my brother's ego down a few pegs, then there's just nothing left for me on this sweet green earth. At this point I'd post some pithy and appropriate Chesterton quote about vegetarians, but I'm at my public library, and all I can remember is a verse from one of his poems:

"You will find me drinking rum,
like a sailor in a slum,
you will find me drinking beer like a Baravian.
You will find me drinking gin
in the lowest sort of inn,
because I am at heart a vegetarian."

And to his wondering about how ANYONE could POSSIBLY eat meat--
Step One: Take the Meat. Step Two: place the meat in your mouth. Step Three: Chew completely. Step Four: Swallow. Step Five: Repeat.

Oddily enough, they are the same steps used in eating, well, anything! Fancy that.