So, yesterday, I stopped at Subway to buy my lunch and dinner (ham and turkey footlong!) and some guy with a frail, homely wife and the most introverted, socially awkward and gangly-looking kid* were putting in a mega order.
*I mean, you should have seen this kid. If I were to blow on him, he would fly against the wall. This kid would have hurt himself hitting an inflatable punching bag.
So at any rate, they were ordering six veggie subs for a long road trip, piled with so much vegetable matter that I felt like it defeated the point of ordering a sandwich. Wouldn't it have been more economical to just buy a bag of salad from the grocery story?
Apparently the guy behind the counter had the same thought, and the father stopped short of stepping on a soapbox and declaring that the vegetarian rapture had begun.
He turns to the rest of
us - the regular, meat-eating folks waiting patiently (and impatiently) in line behind him - and begins to condescendingly explain how our silly belief that humans require meat is nothing more than a common myth. It's a lie. A hoax. We have been, quite frankly, bamboozled.
He tells us, and the Subway sandwich artist behind the counter, that all the protein the human body needs can be found in the twelve inches of 9-Grain Wheat Bread that lays before him. It's a fact, he says. Do the research, he concludes (to borrow a page from the Beardo school of debate).
Then he points to how healthy his son is, who has never once tasted the delicious mana from heaven that is toasted animal flesh, as proof of how superior vegetarians are. At this point, an extra from Cops who has the decal "ELLITIRET HEELBELLIE" plastered on his Ford F-150 outside, politely tells him to, "Shut the fuck up."
After some awkward silence, the man scurries his family into their boxy-looking hatchback and drives away. The self proclaimed illiterate redneck steps up to the counter, tells the guy what he wants and adds, "Double meat stuffed."
That was my first ever encounter with an aggressive vegetarian. Who knew they had the testosterone necessary to launch that kind of diatribe.
