Nonmeat Nonweek
The following was written by my best friend Bret, who chose to celebrate Meat Week by not eating meat. Enjoy!
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Nick Johnson is my best friend. One of the things about Bricknet that everyone must know is that we are a team, but we are competitive. Any game night involving Super Smash Brothers or any various speed based card game would bring out our vicious unsportsmanlike insults. Also Crash Team Racing doesn't count because that game sucks not because Nick always wins.
So when Nick announced he was going to be eating Meat for a week I knew I had to respond. Eat Meat for a week? So what? Basically everyone already does that all the time anyway. I'm going to NOT eat Meat for a week! That'll show him.
I learned three very important lessons this week.
1) It's hard to not be vocal about being vegetarian.
2) Being vegetarian doesn't mean being healthy.
3) Things are better with friends.
As silly as it is, a lot of our lives revolves around food. (I say it's silly because in the end it all turns to poop, hehe!) People go out to restaurants and chat. People bring and share exciting foods to work. Dates almost always feature fitting in small talk in between big mouthfuls of dinner. So when one decides to become vegetarian, one is basically limiting one's self from a big part of society. True, they can still partake in the act of going to restaurants or hanging out around people eating food, but eventually the questions do pop up. Whether a new vegetarian likes it or not, the conversation will always at some point revolve around them. It's unfair really. No one ever asks Meat eaters why they choose to eat Meat!
And the biggest question vegetarians get is "Why?" To which any normal vegetarian might answer "I don't like animals dying to feed me" or "health reasons". Of course this week I had to memorize with George Carlin-like skill the following: "My best friend from Rochester who I moved out to Chicago with is a vegetarian but he is leaving Chicago and sad about all the Meat he missed out on and so for one week only he is eating Meat and because particle physics change one thing about one Bricknet and the other Bricknet will respond with equal or greater value I have decided this week to not eat Meat."
"Uh... what?"
Point - Nick.
Veggies are good for you, right? Right. I'm not here to promote some sort of conspiracy theory that carrots are unhealthy or salads are bad. But here's the kicker. As a vegetarian, you actually have to eat veggies to be healthy. Yes that's right. Which means my week of eating buttered noodles, cereal (the kid kind with cartoons on the front and mazes on the back), skittles, popcorn, oreos, pizza (cheese, broccoli, spinach), and peanuts has been about as healthy as I've ever been. Sure every once in a while I got a veggie wrap or Morning Star Black Bean Burger in there, but those healthy nuggets only had my body more confused and stomach wrenching as it was used to it's regular stock of sugar or starch. So while I'm sure Nick's Meat Week is no more healthy than my Non Meat Non Week, Nick has had to suffer through delicious dish after delicious dish while I get to sit back and pin my regularly disastrously unhealthy eating habits on Nick's gluttonous free for all.
Point - Bret.
The obvious self loathing stand up-y joke here is that Nick has more friends than I do. Cue the sympathetic applause for the "underdog"... and Bret takes the win. But that's too easy. I could make some huge big wrap up speech about the ultimate lesson I learned and summarize it with a sentimental touch about Chicago and improv and Thanksgiving type stuff and life. But I'll let Nick have this one. And I'm sure he'll do a fine job of ending on a nice post, most likely involving some dumb ass food puns. (Spice up your life!)
Also that sounds really hard and I have a pomegranate frozen yogurt with red white and blue fruity pebbles- er I mean dinner waiting for me. So I will GRACIOUSLY AND QUIETLY SET DOWN MY METAPHORICAL CONTROLLER AND/OR HAND OF CARDS AND LET NICK WIN.
Point - Nick.
So I guess like, do what you want in life and try to be healthier although I can't make any promises and be with the people you like. Or whatever. I don't care. Being a vegetarian sucks because it is really really stupid and not because Nick always wins.