Reply #60: Bacon!

[Chan790]

This is actually one of my favorite stories...it was so bad that even in the moment I was trying so hard to not laugh at her and feel a little bad about myself.

A small amount of background is required: I am a vegetarian. I do not exclusively date veg*ns, in-fact I generally prefer not to because it tends to go hand-in-hand locally with something that annoys the shit out of me: hippies and granola-freak potheads...I really hate that entire scene: potheads, Phish-fans, hemp-clothing wearing, infrequent bathers who won't wear deodorant...Hartford is infested with them. I am a hardcore foodie. I don't tolerate liars, hypocrites or people who rationalize bad-things well; I'm somewhat hypocritical in that doing exactly this was a major job-skill of mine in a past career: I made people believe things passionately that not only were not always true but occasionally irrational even. I tend to be very very direct, almost confrontationally-so, and speak my mind.

I met a woman, we'll call her Emma, through a work-function where she was contracted to provide PR services. We got to talking and the fact that we're both "PeTA people" came up; also she's a "vegan" (The quotes will be important later. Oh, so important). We both grew up on farms. The guy sitting next to her smelled like farm-sex and patchuoli. (Okay, that was even amusing.) She's militantly-feminist and that scares guys. That's cool with me. Also, she hates my boss, Karl...I think Karl is a prick. She's an avid hiker; I walk everywhere. She's cute. I'm...modest: what I lack in classic good looks I make up for in charm and cleaning-up-well. I'm pretty awestruck with her.

I ask her if she wants to join me for lunch since she hates my boss, probably doesn't want to listen to him spend the next 90 minutes taking credit for her work and the prick decided that I was not going to be invited to the luncheon for my own work-project...it's not good for the stake-holders to see the sausage-makers, I guess. So...we go to this super-fancy cafe in the park overlooking a pond and the community rose garden (Anybody who has ever lived in Hartford knows the precise place.) because I'm a signer on the organization's card and entertaining a good contractor who works cheap is within my purview...that is to say: Karl is buying lunch.

So...we sit down and the waiter comes over to take the order. I let her order first...it seemed I don't know...it seemed like a good idea for no good reason at all. She orders a BLT, mustard, no mayo. I stare silently over the top of my menu. I have a stunned pause. I order some sort of creamy vegetable soup, I think (was it the Squash Bisque? I think it was)...I don't even remember. The waiter walks away and I say "you know that there is bacon on that, right?"

"Bacon is a vegetable."

"Um...no, it's not."

"Bacon is my favorite vegetable."

"What part of the bacon plant does bacon come from then?"

Suddenly, we are having a very loud argument in the restaurant about men's (my) need to oppress women (her). It's her body and she'll put into it whatever she'd like. (Mind you, I might be able truly care less what she eats...I have an issue with her co-opting labels she's not entitled to. Labels I aspire to and fall short of constantly.) I'm not trying to have a personal autonomy argument with Emma...I was trying to preface a make-out sesh behind the pond house perhaps. I decide to leave, pay the bill on the way out the door, leave an additional $40 in case she wants anything else...and left her to enjoy her sandwich in peace and walk back to work.

About halfway there, I realize that this is nearly karmic...two individuals who work in the area of public manipulation getting in an argument about (to borrow a word from Stephen Colbert) truthiness and honesty. Sat down at my desk, composed my letter of resignation. Printed it. Signed it. Wrote an email to Emma (which she never responded to) and left. Never looked back.

To this day, among my friends and I, the proper response to any statement where the stator is simply trying to avoid an uncomfortable truth which would force them to re-examine their actions or thinking is "Bacon is a vegetable." (Though...it's really really not.)