;)
Thursday
May132010
The Grand Apologia
Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 12:26AM
I want to start by clarifying for you that my children are very kind people. Mostly. They stick up for the little guy. They get into fights on the bus that end in their heads getting smashed into the windows because they will not let some kid, no matter how big or popular he is, say the N word in their presence. They start to smash ants with their shoes and then one of them says, and I quote, "Wait, what will his mother do after this?" and then they stop and rescue those very ants from the Driveway of Doom. They thank me every single night for dinner, even though I've told them a bazillion times that it is my moral, legal and ethical duty to feed them, and no thanks are required. They call adults Mr and Mrs, or Sir and Ma'am. They are respectful of adults, (possibly only) when in the presence of said adults.
Basically, I'm saying my kids can queue like motherfuckers. And that they're nice people, generally, when they have to be. Of course, they are but children, and I am slightly biased. But still, I think I've done right by them, and even you would agree, I imagine, if only you were capable.
I'd also like to state for the record that two out of the three of these Eddie Haskels nice kids are vegetarians. I won't even attempt to take credit for this, even though I am a little proud of the fact. Their father works at a restaurant; a very nice restaurant where they wear tuxedos to serve you and specialize in dicing up a specific species of animal in all sorts of beautifully over-priced arrangements. I am not in the business of killing beasts of burden for gangsters...only the English language, but I'll freely admit that of all the things I'd like to quit, eating animals is probably the most unlikely. You see, I have this thing that happens to me every month called a period, and it's not your average, "Oh, how inconvenient and annoying this monthly uterine-lining expulsion is", it's someone shaking up a pub can of Guiness real hard and then poking a hole in the can. Every drop of liquid in my entire body rushes for equally-pressurized pastures and once the iron is all gone, there's really only one thing I can do to get it back.
Enter cows.
And I am sorry for this. I really, truly wish I could show the same level of professional courtesy that I have come to expect, nigh, demand, the animal kingdom show me back. On an intellectual level, I am 100% again the consumption of animals but on the animal level, I need medium rare steak like Kathy needs Regis. However, I make up for the sins of myself and the father with the fact that two of my children have, all on their own, written off meat of any kind, simply because they don't want it anymore.
Well, one of them did. The other one did because it gives him an 'angle' with which to pick up hot chicks. Bygones.
I mention all of this so that you'll understand that when those boys, my darling sons, showed up shrieking at the back door with first a tiny little frog, and then a fat, bumpy toad, and lastly an ohmygodsoslimy tree frog, I tried to dissuade them from keeping them. I reminded them that all of God's creatures have mothers and homes and lives and who are we to dictate the fortunes of another living thing? They agreed, but were overcome with the pre-pubescent need to watch stuff crawl about their bedrooms. Stuff that isn't in the laundry basket. They kept the frogs and the toad and we are now proud pet owners with a moral, legal and ethical duty to see to it that those creatures remain alive and moderately thriving for as long as we are capable.
And see? There's this thing called the Food Chain, and how it works is that if you are able to create brick walls that won't blow down if wolves huff and puff on them, you get to live at the top of the food chain. Also, if you run really fast. If you are able to skeeve mothers out and eventually be dissected in middle school science rooms, you get to live in the middle of the food chain. If you live in old cardboard egg cartons and require only a little rock salt to survive, you are unfortunately sent to the bottom of the food chain, and that is where our paths have crossed today.
It's not that the kids were actually thrilled to watch you die, it's that they were overly excited to finally partake in the Circle of Life. Their food comes from pantry shelves and grocery store coolers. They've never known the thrill of the hunt, they've never had to strategize their meals. They've never had to use cunning and camouflage and their tongues to catch anything (except chicken pox) (which I gave them) (shut up). So when they saw Tull (their toad, brotha from anotha mutha to Jethro) lurking in the burrow he'd dug for himself, blending in seamlessly with the moss and driftwood surrounding his admittedly gross as all fuck body, moving nothing but his eyes, watching every spastic little hoppy move you made, I had no choice but to call them over. It's my duty as a mother to teach these children science. And so, together we watched in breathless wonder as you stumbled closer and closer to our lurking friend, and I just want to assure you that the screams and fistbumps that followed your instantaneous capture and descent into the admittedly gross as all fuck bowels of our toad were not in celebration of your death, but merely in respect for the grandness of the natural order of things.
Because we salute the Earth, and all her creatures great and small, but particularly ones with really, really freaking long oh my god so totally awesome tongues.
With regrets to your cricket brethren, I bid you adieu. May you receive your 40 virgins or, you know, a job ruling over a bunch of whiny humans on Earth. Either way, really.
Basically, I'm saying my kids can queue like motherfuckers. And that they're nice people, generally, when they have to be. Of course, they are but children, and I am slightly biased. But still, I think I've done right by them, and even you would agree, I imagine, if only you were capable.
I'd also like to state for the record that two out of the three of these Eddie Haskels nice kids are vegetarians. I won't even attempt to take credit for this, even though I am a little proud of the fact. Their father works at a restaurant; a very nice restaurant where they wear tuxedos to serve you and specialize in dicing up a specific species of animal in all sorts of beautifully over-priced arrangements. I am not in the business of killing beasts of burden for gangsters...only the English language, but I'll freely admit that of all the things I'd like to quit, eating animals is probably the most unlikely. You see, I have this thing that happens to me every month called a period, and it's not your average, "Oh, how inconvenient and annoying this monthly uterine-lining expulsion is", it's someone shaking up a pub can of Guiness real hard and then poking a hole in the can. Every drop of liquid in my entire body rushes for equally-pressurized pastures and once the iron is all gone, there's really only one thing I can do to get it back.
Enter cows.
And I am sorry for this. I really, truly wish I could show the same level of professional courtesy that I have come to expect, nigh, demand, the animal kingdom show me back. On an intellectual level, I am 100% again the consumption of animals but on the animal level, I need medium rare steak like Kathy needs Regis. However, I make up for the sins of myself and the father with the fact that two of my children have, all on their own, written off meat of any kind, simply because they don't want it anymore.
Well, one of them did. The other one did because it gives him an 'angle' with which to pick up hot chicks. Bygones.
I mention all of this so that you'll understand that when those boys, my darling sons, showed up shrieking at the back door with first a tiny little frog, and then a fat, bumpy toad, and lastly an ohmygodsoslimy tree frog, I tried to dissuade them from keeping them. I reminded them that all of God's creatures have mothers and homes and lives and who are we to dictate the fortunes of another living thing? They agreed, but were overcome with the pre-pubescent need to watch stuff crawl about their bedrooms. Stuff that isn't in the laundry basket. They kept the frogs and the toad and we are now proud pet owners with a moral, legal and ethical duty to see to it that those creatures remain alive and moderately thriving for as long as we are capable.
And see? There's this thing called the Food Chain, and how it works is that if you are able to create brick walls that won't blow down if wolves huff and puff on them, you get to live at the top of the food chain. Also, if you run really fast. If you are able to skeeve mothers out and eventually be dissected in middle school science rooms, you get to live in the middle of the food chain. If you live in old cardboard egg cartons and require only a little rock salt to survive, you are unfortunately sent to the bottom of the food chain, and that is where our paths have crossed today.
It's not that the kids were actually thrilled to watch you die, it's that they were overly excited to finally partake in the Circle of Life. Their food comes from pantry shelves and grocery store coolers. They've never known the thrill of the hunt, they've never had to strategize their meals. They've never had to use cunning and camouflage and their tongues to catch anything (except chicken pox) (which I gave them) (shut up). So when they saw Tull (their toad, brotha from anotha mutha to Jethro) lurking in the burrow he'd dug for himself, blending in seamlessly with the moss and driftwood surrounding his admittedly gross as all fuck body, moving nothing but his eyes, watching every spastic little hoppy move you made, I had no choice but to call them over. It's my duty as a mother to teach these children science. And so, together we watched in breathless wonder as you stumbled closer and closer to our lurking friend, and I just want to assure you that the screams and fistbumps that followed your instantaneous capture and descent into the admittedly gross as all fuck bowels of our toad were not in celebration of your death, but merely in respect for the grandness of the natural order of things.
Because we salute the Earth, and all her creatures great and small, but particularly ones with really, really freaking long oh my god so totally awesome tongues.
With regrets to your cricket brethren, I bid you adieu. May you receive your 40 virgins or, you know, a job ruling over a bunch of whiny humans on Earth. Either way, really.
Reader Comments (27)
This is just full of win. I needed to smile and your family and the circle of life did just that. Thank you.
That was pure awesome. And we're totally coming over to your house for entertainment.
Next time, YouTube it. A cricket has but one life to give. Being able to claim 500 views in the afterlife is so much cooler than merely being turned into toad poo.
Red meat! I crave it too. In N Out is a Godsend.
You know what's almost as good as finding a $20 in the washer? Remembering that you had this thing called a blog. http://tinyurl.com/2666nfm
Going Veggie for the chicks is not wholeheartedly bad. Smart kid. :o)
Do you know how freaking awesome it would be to stick your tongue out and...BAM...dinner? If it meant not having to go to the grocery store a minimum of five times a week and not having to turn on my oven when its 85 degrees in May and I'm pretending that I don't want to turn on the AC even though I'm sweating like a whore in church, then I would just love to be a toad.
Thanks for the laugh this morning. We used to have Anoles and they eat crickets also. Just wait until the crickets escape from their home and hop all over your house, good times.
Here's my question: how have you managed to sell them on legumes? (the kids, not the frog/toad critters) I have a son who is leaning towards the vegetarian life (well, until his dad makes b-b-q), but he's no legume or tofu lover. And seriously, there are only so many eggs and pieces of salmon one 6 yr old can eat.
I know this has very little, if anything, to do with the awesomeness of this post -- which is totally awesome. Sorry. I got stuck on the early part.
LOL!
We had a gecko. She ate crickets. It was awesome. We also had a boa constrictor. My kiddo got to learn this lesson watching him squeeze the life out of a rat. It was gruesome, and yet, still fascinating and cool.
I'm with you. If given the choice between giving up sex and giving up steak, it would be a ROUGH decision likely ending in suicide.
That being said, Panic won't touch red-meat in any form, and will only eat chicken or fish if it's properly breaded and nuggetized (thank you McDonalds for that)
It's better than nothing I guess. (Of course my my oldest will not hesitate to eat two Angus burgers back-to-back these days so I think I'm netting out even.)
But it might mean you eat crickets if it were that easy to get dinner. GAK.
They're trying to sell ME on the concept, sadly. It's been a fun experiment, seeing what we can make without meat. And by fun, I mean ohmygod I'm so sick of fish tacos and cheese enchiladas.
My daughter had toads in her classroom last year. By the end of the summer, there was only one big, fat, happy toad left. Ah nature, it loves a cannibal :)!
I dangle my lion cubs over the cliff and belt out something about circles and life. Or something like that. http://tinyurl.com/2666nfm
Your children are clearly a nice reflection of yourself and your husband. That kind of politeness is fantastic. As for the vegan lifestyle, good for them. I am not willing to give up meat myself but I fully respect those who do and admire the will to do so.
Good luck with all the critter love. Pretty soon, you may end up like the redneck mommy household. hehe.
Despite having the requisite dogs and cats, my kids insisted on the perennial Florida pet - a hermit crab (actually we had three in toto, now fertilizing our crepe myrtle bushes). I ended up being the one to tend to them, all the while thinking 'these claws are much to little to boil and nosh with a ramekin butter.'
Awesome! :) Most enjoyable read this morning! And I hear ya on the meat thing each month....
Oh I hated watching the frog eat when Son had them as pets! But the way you describe the circle of life is great!
We have a pair of listless African Dwarf Frogs living in a plastic cube in the middle of our kitchen table. They are like little bugs in water. I have a serious case of buyers' remorse regarding these little guys, and they live as long as seven years. SEVEN. But if I could turn them into a science experiment... Hmm. I just need to locate one slightly larger frog, then?
I wasn't sure what you were setting us up for HAHA!
I love that he says he went vegetarian in part to impress chicks - kids are so funny.
My girls (6&4) have talked to me about not eating meat, but neither was willing to eat more legumes/beans so they contented themselves with the fact that we don't eat the animals that they listed out - including their stuffed animals.
If only the farming and processing of meat were more old fashioned...
excellent ! but so thankful you held back on the photography !!
your kids are my heroes ever since paragraph one.
I have tears in my eyes and faint memories of two little baby rats rescued from my best friend's dad's compost pile. We "saved" them only to have fire ants sting them to death in our makeshift bald rat habitat.
I'm sure it's the thought that counts :)
You're an O, dude. You can't go veg.
You just...oh wait. I totally did it and feel pretty awesome and I have that whole vacating issue as well and really? I take iron supplements for the few days before, the nine during, and the few after. Otherwise, even with the most luscious, tasty medium rare murder, I'm dizzy. And not just in a airhead way.
BUT. The point is... You can be a 'mostly veg', if you wanna be. And seriously, I'd kill for a kid who was into legumes. All I can get this kid to eat is tofu, hummus, and peanut butter and almond butter. Vegan didn't go so well for her, so she gets free range once or twice a week.
@LesbianDad http://www.whiskeyinmysippycup.com/2010/05/13/the-grand-apologia/ (in my own defense)
OK, here's @mrlady 's last word on cricket-o-vores. Enjoy, if you can get past the author pic (NOT easy). http://tinyurl.com/2g7lqdg