I make the worst vegetarian. I packed a meat-free lunch for the first time today. I have this crazy idea that being a weekday vegetarian and a weekend omnivore would be a nice thing. Maybe a weekday pescatarian. (I could eat sushi every day…) On paper, this is the best idea in the world. I’ve toyed with it for years. But I’ve never taken action. After all, I like meat and there are already so many things I can’t have. Thank you, allergy Hell. Maybe it’s less like Hell these days and more like Purgatory.

Purgatory is better than Hell, right?

So, I’ve been on the no red-meat bandwaggon for like fifteen years or something. It wasn’t a moral reason. Unknowingly, I had allergies. I was reading this book about eating for your blood type, thinking maybe something else was making me sick. Hindsight is 20:20. Turns out I have no meat allergies but at this point, I’m basically unwilling to reintroduce red-meat into my diet. Not worth the headache. Outside of smelling a burger on the grill in the summertime, I don’t miss it.

This is not all to say I don’t like meat. I do. As much as I’d like to say there is some better reason, if I’m being honest, I have no moral reasons behind my wanting to eat less of it. I’m simply not that good of a person. I’d like to have a pet pig someday and I’d like to think I wouldn’t eat pork around the little guy.

I might have a name picked out, something like… Kevin Trotters Bacon, but mostly as a joke. I wouldn’t actually want to eat him.

Probably.

To be fair, growing up on a farm meant there were quite a few eatable animals. While my sister was off naming them Oreo, and Buttercup, I was much more literally in my nicknames.

“Come here Babyback,” and, “Aren’t you looking good today T-Bone.”

She didn’t think it was funny. In fact, my sister named the farm pigs, Spock and Oreo. I think I encouraged the name Spock which doesn’t make me look any better.

*Shrugs*

Unlike the pig I’d like to own someday, something small, these two were monstrosities. They were huge and kind of vicious for pigs. They got out of their pens one too many times. More than just getting out, one of them bit my dad. Long story short, he called the butcher.

“Miranda, let’s not tell your sister about this. She knows they’re going to be butchered. But I might have fibbed a little and told her we wouldn’t actually get their meat back. Instead, we’d get some other pig meat. This seemed to sedate her. Understood?” Dad was giving me a lecture about being a good older sister.

“Sure, sure.”

Fast forward a couple of weeks and we’ve picked up Oreo and Spock from the butcher. *I might be laughing while writing this. I’m not a good human.* Dad and mom both give me a look as we’re putting the fresh cuts into the deep freezer.

“I know, I know.”

While I can’t quite remember why my sister was being such a turd, know from the bottom of my heart, she was being one. We’re all sitting around the table. She was just going at it.

My dad and mother have both asked her to stop several times. We’d been fighting quite a bit, as sister do. I remember dad looked over at me like he could read it on my face. “Miranda, don’t.”

My mother saw it too. “Miranda… Be the bigger person.”

I cut into my pork chop, slicing at the plate vigorously.

My sister quipped again, thinking she’s won this fight.

“Miranda!”

I looked up from my plate. Made eye contact with the monster across the table. I stabbed at the meat and popped it into my mouth. “Mmmmm Spock,” I stabbed another piece. “Mmmmmm Oreo.” I chewed and laughed manically.

My mother’s jaw dropped. My father’s eyes bulged. Both, barely containing their own laughter. Mom reaches a hand at my sister trying to calm the explosion we all feel is on the horizon. Only she doesn’t get the words out before tears are streaming down her face and a belly laugh escapes her lips.

My sister sits, horrified.

I continued to eat my dinner, non-pulsed.

My parents can’t stop laughing and soon the sister figure leaps up, screams, pork flying out of her mouth, and runs off to her room. To say that I ruined pork for her feels like giving me too much credit. It was a choice she made, but also, yea. She didn’t eat pork for something like fifteen years. It’s only been in the last few years that she’s taken a liking for bacon and sausage. She still won’t come near a pork chop though.

I know, I know… But I was like thirteen and she was being a pain in the ass.

I think.

I don’t actually remember why we fought anymore.

So yea. Maybe me trying to become a more meat continuous is ultimately one big fail due to some severely overdue karmic circle. I don’t know if that is even a little correct, but it feels like it might be.

Oh! I can say this with confidence, I’m a snobby fresh farm eggs only kind of person when I can be. I do know the horrors of how chickens are raised. It doesn’t prevent me from eating said chickens… but the eggs taste better when they come from happy chickens. True story. Once you’ve had awesome bright orange yolk, you’ll never want a “regular” egg again. And Eggs are one of my favorite foods in the whole world.

Now I just sound like a shit person.

Okay, I’m going to lie and say there’s morality behind all of these choices.

*looks down*

Ugh.

I went to the store last night to buy “vegetarian-like lunch stuff”. That’s what my grocery list read.  What I left with what was a handful of carrots, this veggie noodle dish thing, yogurt, and cheese.

I don’t actually like yogurt. I know it’s good for you or something but no matter how much I try to like it, I just don’t. I could eat my weight in cheese. But that’s not healthy. And while I pack a small salad every day, sometimes a larger one, this girl needs variety.

I thought I’d start small, meat-free lunches. Branch out to dinner after that. But damn, it might not happen.

Here’s the upshot to all of this. I did buy chocolate and while I didn’t pack the BBQ pork sitting in my fridge, I did pack that.

Cheers,

M