Help! All my Friends are Vegan!

Dear Genghis,

I live in Austin and all my friends are hispter vegans. While I respect their choice, and they claim to respect mine, I have trouble feeling comfortable. They are not your stereotypical more-vegan-than-thou-art vegans, but sometimes I forget and order something with cheese in it (I’m vegetarian) and they stare at me like I kicked a puppy. How do I justify my animal appetite for dairy. I’m just an animal myself!

-Hungry Hippo in Austin

Dear Hippo,

Sympathies. I often must deal with these lunatics. look, I love animals, in Mongolia, they are part of the family, my goat was like a brother to me, my sheep was like a comely sister, and my cow was like a dead uncle: delicious and not be wasted.

But this does not answer your question, how do you deal with a moral crusader who tells you not to eat meat simply because they have cute eyes, furry faces, and intellectual and emotional capacities worthy of our respect and compassion?

I’ll tell you what I do.

I point out all the inevitable Apple products these vegans decorate themselves with. That’s some expensive produce they have there, along with their flat screen tv, and their laptop, and whatever else they think they need to impress their peers. Then I ask have them calculate just how many starving children such resources could have fed, clothed and vaccinated.

Why do they surround themselves with luxuries as so many go without necessities?

They have trouble with the math of course, as severe iron deficiency has no doubt addled their brains. Be prepared, the exposure of their moral hypocrisy may trigger some sort of flight/flight response, and since they lack the muscle mass for fighting, they will surely flee. If you are sitting in a vegan sushi restaurant, this may well cause a stampede.

Fear not, there is safety in numbers, if you are a hungry predator that is, as an abundance of prey ensures a kill. Simply pursue them from the storefront, and in the chaos one of the very young, very old, or sickly will have fallen. Their iphone may be smashed, so they will probably already be in tears. Shriek “think different’ and descend ravenously upon them, sinking your teeth into their neck.

Feast.

Sated, you may then return to sit among the frightened, huddled occupants of the restaurant, still chewing their cud, cow-eyed, only dimly aware of the danger. But you must be strong and not judge them as they consume their shittake mushrooms and Thai mangos, and all types of exotic items shipped across oceans at great expense and at great cost to the environment.

You however, the one with blood running down your chin, are the one who cares.

You’re a localvore.