stimac@tymix.UUCP (Michael Stimac) (02/24/84)
First, I want to thank Sharon for sharing the comments she's heard over the years from non-vegetarians. Most all of them rang a bell with me. My favorite is "What made you decide to become a vegetarian?" usually asked somewhat ernestly. I always find this difficult to answer, because I don't feel like I "decided" or that something MADE me decide. I've never enjoyed the prospect of killing animals, ever since I was a small child. I hated fishing for that reason, deplored the stories my father used to tell of beheading chickens on the family farm when he was a boy (ych!!!), and avoided thinking about how sausages were made. If I think the questioner has any sense of humor, I just tell them that I don't like eating <burnt> dead animal flesh. If they don't get it, I just ask them how they'd like to eat a dog's brain. After they stop barfing, I explain I feel the same way about cow muscle. More often I just tell people that I don't like to kill animals and also don't want to pay someone else to kill them for me. (It took me a long time to realise that by buying meat someone else had killed I was 'voting' for killing animals). Shortly after becoming vegetarian I was driving in Phildelphia and saw a truck loaded with sheep. It felt really good to see them and know that I was not contributing to their slaughter (yes, I felt sorry for them, but that is another story). The first time I visited my grandmother after becoming vegetarian, I found that she was really upset about my diet. She insisted that I would become sick (probably this very afternoon) and after several days SHE was becoming a nervous wreck. I finally realized that everyone would be much happier if I let her do SOMETHING, so I let her go out and buy a nice lake trout and saute it for me. She was delighted, and I made her day thus. Her family had always been a meat-and-potatoes (but mostly meat) family and the concept of vegetarianism was just too threatening to her belief system, I guess.