Here are five problems that torment the souls of vegetarians everywhere.
Or maybe just my soul. (Is it just me? It can’t be, seriously, look at that rug.)
1. I like leather jackets. Who doesn’t? I mean check out good ole Ms. Klum here:
I am reasonably certain that the only thing standing between me and looking like Heidi Klum is that I don’t own a leather jacket. But I can’t own a leather jacket because it’s leather. I mean, I’m not vegan or anything but vegetarians are in this strange moral grey area with leather – is it okay to not eat the animal but still wear it?
I have a few leather belts from my pre-vegetarian days, and some second-hand leather stuff because I mean that’s ok, right? I also own leather shoes because they are the best quality and I don’t believe in buying cheap shoes that will just wear out and clutter up landfills (which is even worse than eating meat. Isn’t it?) but I mean, this isn’t an issue of practicality, other, non-animal-hide coats would keep me just as warm, it’s an issue of damnnnnn Heidi, you look gooooood. I too would like to look good like you.
My sister has a faux-leather jacket that she bought from Forever 21 that is basically the Platonic Ideal for leather jackets, and I loved it so much that Adam secretly offered her hundreds of dollars if she would give it to me, but she is a smart lady and clearly recognizes a good thing when she has it, and she turned him down time and time again.
(Then I borrowed it and left it at a friend’s house for three months. Whoops. That sure showed HER.)
Here I am wearing it, and don’t let my pained expression fool you, I am loving the shit out of that thing.
(The expression is because I was in a bar on my birthday, and if you see nothing wrong with that statement you are clearly approximately eighteen times more fun and well-adjusted than I am.)
2. Let’s talk about this cowhide rug. This is even more reprehensible than the jacket. But seriously I want a cowhide rug maybe even a tiny bit more than I want the Kilim rugs I’ve been obsessing about forever.
I think the cowhide is even more attractive because it is a forbidden love, and I know that we can never, ever be together. Unless Adam BUYS IT WITHOUT MY PERMISSION! DON’T YOU DARE BUY A COWHIDE RUG ADAM NOBLE, I WILL NOT ALLOW IT! NOT ON MY WATCH THINK OF THE ANIMALS THAT POOR COW ETC AND SO ON OH GOD IT’S SO PRETTY CAN I JUST MAYBE TOUCH IT A LITTLE PLEASE?
I have nothing more to say on this matter because I feel deeply, deeply ashamed of myself. Somehow it’s simple to resist eating bacon while the rest of the world seems to be doing everything but brushing their teeth with it, but every time I see a room like this I die a little inside.
Oh, guys. Would it really be so bad? Could I call it recycling? Maybe someone can find me a nicely coloured cow that had great personal hygiene and died of old age?
Sigh.
Remember the saga of the couch? Tl;dr – I wanted a mid-century modern leather couch. Had to be second-hand so I could justify the leather as recycling. But I could not find one anywhere, and even when I was hypothetically looking at new couches no one seemed to have any leather in colours other than cream or that overdone espresso brown. I shelved my dreams and we finally settled on a gorge grey tufted number that I love. But what should I see while flipping through the IKEA catalogue over a year later? THE COUCH OF MY DREAMS.
I already swore that I wouldn’t ever buy IKEA furniture again, plus there’s the fact that it’s leather but seriously world, why do you do this to me? I die.
4. Bacon and gummy candies. I know I said above that it was easy to resist bacon, and I mean it is, relatively speaking. Easier than if I were to permanently give up sex, or chocolate, that is. (I mean that’s the ranking, right? Sex, chocolate, bacon?), but where was the bacon-wrapped-everything when was still a meat eater? When I ate meat, bacon was a sunday morning treat, not something you put in milkshakes, goddamn it.
I also feel personally affronted that I only discovered Splitz Grill (home of the best burgers in the entire world) years after I went vegetarian. I mean heir spicy lentil burger is fabulous, but they once accidentally served me a meat burger and I was halfway through it with juices dripping down my chin, fanatically proclaiming it the most incredible thing I’ve ever tasted, when I realized it was meat and had to put it down.
I should have just shut my mouth and finished the damn thing,
Also, one of the worst parts of becoming vegetarian is discovering that there is meat or animal products in everything. Including cheese (rennet, also known as calf stomach-sorry) and gummy candies (gelatin, from animal bones.)
Like, I gave up BACON and now I can’t even have gummy candies- no one told me about this when I signed the contract. Can’t I have anything good anymore?
5. We, as a people, are so damn tiresome. Oh, is there meat in that? Is that vegetarian? What kind of broth did you use? Do you have tofu?
How do you just not want to punch vegetarians in the face sometimes? You do, right? You can tell me. I am aware.
There’s always a few obnoxious ones souring the world on all of us lovely unobtrusive accommodating vegetarians who happily cook meat (because you provide me with non-meat options to respect my eating choices, so I will do the same for you.) and almost never lecture you about slaughterhouses and abbatoirs and free range versus free run and why they are so different (seriously, SO different) (I mean…nothing! How’s your steak?!).
Even when you’re rid of us and we leave your house we are here, on The Internets, lamenting the fact that we can’t buy things because of our precious OMGethics and self-prescribed limitations to consumer goods.
SO. There you have it. TGIF?
Seriously though, about that rug! Fellow vegetarians – I know you’re out there – where do you draw the line? Is everyone else munching tofu, encased in leather admiring their brand new couches? Are you all aghast and horrified by these admissions? I mean, am I out? Am I going to get a letter? I don’t even know what to think anymore.
xoxo
-M