Mother Hoodwink

Yeah, a year later and still not even close to vegan.

*I wrote this about a year ago but never posted it for some reason. Here it is for your reading enjoyment. If you don't enjoy it, then bite me.

Dim and I are on a mission to become healthier. I have a dream that one day I will be able to be vegan. I want to be one of those people that only use food as fuel and not as a yummy thing that I just want to eat. We have given up most of our red meat. We were going to give it all up, but I made some meatballs the other night out of ground chicken and I have to say, not so tasty. I even put mozzarella in the middle of them and they still weren't all that great. They would have been much better with ground beef. We have replaced just about every red meat meal with some sort of ground bird. Turkey burgers, in my opinion, are way better than beef burgers. I make this delicious penne dish that usually calls for beef but we switched to chicken and it was still delectable. It looks like we'll be saving our red meat nights for meatballs.

As for dairy, I bought soy milk. I got one chocolate and one regular. I tried the chocolate one the day I got it because it seemed less gross to me. It was ok. Kind of like thick water with chocolate. I didn't want to projectile vomit after drinking it so I'll think I continue to get it. I still haven't brought myself to try the regular soy milk. To be honest, I'm sort of scared to. It shouldn't be gross. I mean it's milk made from a bean. That's a lot more appetizing than milk from some huge mammal.

I always thought it was weird that we drank milk from a cow. Humans are the only animals that drink milk from another animal. I always think that it would be more logical that we would drink human milk. But then I get even more grossed out about the thought of women in lactation factories pumping out milk to sell at the supermarket right next to the orange juice. The whole idea of milk is just gross to me. I don't care if it comes from a cow or a bean. It's gross. Even when I eat cereal, I have to try not to think about the fact that I'm consuming milk. That doesn't stop me from eating dairy everyday though. I am able to easily separate cheese and ice cream from cows. Maybe because my like for them far outweighs the nasty that it really is.

Dim wanted nothing to do with the soy milk. He absolutley refuses to try it. While I bought soy milk, he got organic milk. I don't understand how it has less additives and cow hormones and yet stays good for two months when you get maybe two weeks tops on regular milk. The orgnaic milk is actually pretty good. For the first time since I was a kid, I have been drinking glasses of milk. This is huge for me. Because, if you haven't noticed, I'm not a fan.

So I guess while it's not soy, organic is still a step in the right direction.

Hell No We Won't Go!

[Editor's Note] I originally wrote this a couple of years ago when we were living in New Orleans.

I thought I would write about my old job at Chick-fil-a. I worked there during my junior year of high school. A new store was opening right by our house, so I thought I would apply. The manager that conducted the interview was such a moron. He was asking me all these questions that you would ask someone who is applying to work at a real job. Like what can I do for Chick-fil-a. Hmm, let's see. I'll make sure not to steal from the register like most of your other teenage employees. Or why do I want this job. Let's see. My mom won't give me anymore money for Cheetos and dresses. Guess I have to go make my own. I told him I needed the money and he was flabbergasted that would be a viable reason for a job. Idiot.

So I got the job. I started training at another store since the one I would be working at wasn't open yet. I trained for three days. No one ever mentioned a schedule or when the damn store even opened. I had to track down the manager in order to figure out when the hell I had to work. There was a girl in my English class who went to training with me but never actually went to work. I asked her why she quit. She said she didn't. No one ever told her when to come back, so she didn't. Logical explanation.

The night before the store opened, Chick-fil-a held a banquet dinner for the new branch and all of its new employees. There were a few speakers. The first one started out his speech with a prayer to bless the new restaurant. Although, I'm all for prayer I did think it was a bit odd that a national chain would do that. Anyways, the next speaker came up and she too said a prayer twice in her speech. We had about five speakers and all of them prayed one to two times within their speech. All the new employees were just sitting there like "What the fuck?" Then they had a minister come out and pray for our meal of, what else, chicken. Somehow I knew Burger King wouldn't pray this much. I did know that Chick-fil-a was always closed on Sundays and their kid's meal toys were always booklets of stories with good morals or cassette tapes of a church sermon thinly veiled by a children's story. It was all coming together.

I lasted only two months there. During my time there we would have daily shift meetings and the manager told us that if we felt stressed then to take a minute and say a prayer, but not too long of a minute since we had a job to do. Um, ok. Thanks for giving me permission to pray, weirdo.

One day while I was in the back shoving "toys" into the kid's meal bags, the mascot chicken came back to take a break. He was an older man. He said his wife was a manager of a Chick-fil-a in another part of town. He said that all the managers and owners of the stores go to the same church and that if you want to be a manager than you have to attend their church. Sounds a bit cultish to me.

A classmate of mine worked there for a little while. It got out that she was gay. After that rumor was out, we didn't really see her anymore. She later told me that she was called into the manager's office and was told that broadcasting her personal life is not a Chick-fil-a standard. Those bastards.

One night I was on the schedule from four to nine. I clocked out at nine and went home. The next day when I came into work, I tried to clock in and the computer wouldn't let me. I went to the manager and he told me to go into his office and wait for him. He left me in his little monkey cage for at least twenty minutes. The whole time I kept thinking that I better still be getting paid for sitting in here. He finally came in. He told me that I was supposed to close the night before. This means that I should have stayed until eleven. I told him that the schedule clearly said for me work from four to nine the day before. He kept telling me I was lying. He then threw is hands up in the air and said fine, we'll just see. He grabbed the schedule that was taped to the outside of his door and put it on his desk. It said that I was to work from four to nine. Ha, Bitch! I thought that the problem was cleared up and I could get to work. It wasn't. He then asked me why I was so eager to leave the night before. He was all, "Weren't you the one who was saying you had a lot of homework to do and you had to go home early?" Um no. Anyone who knew me in high school knew I didn't do my homework until ten minutes before class. That's how I rolled. Anyways, I said no and then he said it. "Well why did you leave early? Did you want to go and have premarital sex with your boyfriend?" It took a few seconds for that to sink in. I didn't even have a boyfriend at the time. (I started dating Dim a month later.) I told my scumbag manager that, "I don't have a boyfriend and if I did, it's not really any of your business what kind of sex I have with him. And I didn't leave early. The schedule you made says that I only work to nine this entire week." I said it all in that very bitchy way only a teenage girl can do. I quit on the spot and left.

I tried to boycott Chick-fil-a stores. It only worked for a year or so. Their chicken sandwiches are so good. I couldn't help it. Now that we have moved to New Orleans, I have started to boycott them again. You see, there isn't a Chick-fil-a anywhere near us so it makes the temptation of crossing the picket line much harder. So say it with me, "Chick-fil-a hates the gays!", "2 4 6 8 Chick-fil-a only hires the straight!" or "Chick-fil-a are a bunch of bigoted sexist assholes." I think I like that last one.

[Editor's note] I totally forgot to add that for being a pretty religious establishment, they don't even donate their leftover food. At the end of the night we would put all the unused cooked chicken into tubs to measure how much was leftover. Then we would throw it out. The employees were not allowed by any means to take any of the chicken. I always thought that was really fucked up. If they’re not going to give it the homeless than they should at least give it to their hungry employees. Whatever. Chick-fil-a sucks.