Dreadful Nonsense

Jeez, you guys, one at a time with the deafening feedback, if you don't mind. I'd've thought that the sheer beauty of Kesh would have drawn one or two comments but no, y'all are silent as the grave around Derek Acorah. Well then, fine. Have it your way and be like that. I (sob) don't fucking (weep) care. Bastards.

ANYHOO. I went out for lunch with a bunch of people with whom I spend a lot of my week days, if you know what I mean, and holy bejoly it was quite the adventure. For a start, there was a scramble for seats as we all tried to sit with our buddies so that we could talk about the people we didn't like, but the older members of the group chuckled at this and suggested that instead we should all sit with people we don't usually sit with, so we could all get to know each other that little bit better. Call me a loon, but the reason we don't know them by now is because WE DON'T WANT TO KNOW THEM, THANKS, but the older members, being the ones more directly in charge of our spare change, if you know what I mean, have the final say, and so we were separated and cast adrift from each other.

Thusly, I was left sitting with a bunch of people who didn't already know that I was vegetarian. I absolutely hate eating with people I don't really know, because for some reason the disclosure that I'm vegetarian seems to make people's brains rattle around in their skulls, bouncing off the sides and leading them to bizarre declarations like

"Of course, I don't eat very much red meat at all."
"I'm really more of a chicken and fish person."
"I don't know how you do it, I couldn't live without it."
"What do you eat then?"

and my fucking favourite:

[picks up meat on fork, and dances it about while making noise of animal] "Mooo! Baaaa!"

At least the last one didn't happen on this occasion, as we were all sitting pretending to be grown ups together. I knew it would be a disaster from the first scan of the menu: there was nothing vegetarian on it. Oh hell.

The waiter came along, and I tried to discretely ask if there was anything vegetarian. He looked aghast, like I'd just asked to nibble on his ear, and ran to the top of the room. He came back looking slightly calmer, and told me they could whip up an omlette.

Thing is, I'm allergic to eggs. They make me want to puke my stomach lining out through my ears. I told him this (without the stomach lining and ears part) and he raced back up to the top of the room. He came back looking smug, and told me they could whip up some pancakes.

"Right," I said, without moving my mouth, as my teeth were clenched so tightly and I was turning a very bright shade of red thanks to the social embarrassment of it all, "that's got egg in it too."

"Yes!" he said, and then got the point.

In the end, I had salad. Twice. Two salads. I mean, it was nice salad, but since we were being taken out for lunch that day, an expensive lunch that I wasn't paying for, I'd gone all out and not eaten much that day, and also hadn't brought in anything to eat, thinking that, you know, we're going to a restaurant and I'd have some food, rather than a pile of leaves wankily piled up on a plate and dripped lightly with some kind of Italian oil. Yummy leaves, yummy oil, but Jebus, it's not called an APPETISER for nothing. By the end of it, I was hungrier than I had began.

Of course, I smiled and pretended I didn't give a hot shit while sulking so badly internally I wanted to cry just a little bit, and if anyone had hugged me or shown me a photograph of some froliking kittens right then, I would have dissolved into a puddle of my own misery.

The worst thing, though, was the revelation that someone sitting very close to me was also vegetarian. He took this as some kind of bonding opportunity, and when people started, as they always do, asking us how long we'd been vegetarian (WHAT DO YOU CARE? DO I ASK YOU HOW LONG YOU'VE BEEN EATING MEAT?), he started spouting on and on about animal rights and blah blah blah, while I sat there thinking, this is why people hate vegetarians. You, sir, are why people thing we're all prissy assholes with rods up our backsides and massive chips the size of Britney Spears' ass on our shoulders. Please, please, please shut up.

But then he was crowned, in my eyes at least, the worst vegetarian I've ever met as he declared, almost totally out of context, waving around a forkfull of salad and looking the most self satisfied I have ever seen anyone outside of Jordan on the cover of whatever piece of shit women's magazine she's gracing this week, and completely without any kind of embarrassment - this is a man who is in his mid-40s, a very highly paid professional and someone who should absolutely know better:

"WOULD YOU EAT A PUPPY?"

And hungry as I was at that very moment, I thought to myself, "oh yeah."

This entry was posted on 16 May 2006 at 7:29 pm. 0 comments

Dreadful Nonsense

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