Twas Brillig

I’m sitting here watching the world premiere of High School Musical 2.

My kids are in bed. They are not watching it with me. That’s right. I’m watching it BY MYSELF.

I told them I’d TiVo it tonight and they can watch it in the morning.

But me? I couldn’t wait.

Oooh, Zac Efron is singing now. Dancing too. Gotta run.

Flashback Friday!

I’m a vegetarian. Sometimes I’m a vegan. I have many reasons for this, but the main one is that I can’t eat red meat because I don’t have the enzyme that digests it. And, um, if my body can’t digest it… well… you can imagine that it’s not a good outcome.

My parents always insisted it was all in my head. So, like any good parent, they would sneak beef into my food. And every time, I would puke it up, or *ahem* have other digestive… issues.

To this day, my dad still thinks it’s all in my head. I’m not quite sure what further proof I need to offer. All the doctors’ notes and buckets of puke in the world couldn’t convince him.

(In fairness, I understand their lack of belief in my ailment, as it should be noted that another reason for me not to eat meat is that I’m terribly picky–the pickiest eater you’ve ever met. I always have been, I always will be. Yeah, my two year old doesn’t hold a candle to me. And I hate the look, smell, and texture of meat. I cannot fathom how anyone could choose to eat it–enzyme or no enzyme.)

However, I’m also an adventurous traveler.

The two don’t exactly, um, go well together.

One lovely afternoon, my parents and I found ourselves to be the guests of honor in a rural town in San Juan, Argentina. I had just turned 18. My father was considered a Very Important Person in these parts. Being the guests of honor always meant one thing: I would have to eat meat. And I would be very sick. (Okay, that’s two things.)

However, what I didn’t know about this little village is that the traditional dish to serve to your guests of honor is chivo.

Goat.

In this case, a goat that was specially handpicked from the bishop’s personal flock.

In such a situation, there is no way to say, “no, thank you. I don’t want to eat your goat.” That is simply not an option. ‘Tis better to eat the goat and spend the rest of the day puking than to disappoint, offend, and insult your host.

It gets better.

Everyone eats the goat. But the guest of honor gets… the brain. I am not making this up. The head is cooked with the rest of the body and the brains are, therefore, boiled inside the skull. So they crack open the skull and scoop out the soupy brains and bestow them upon the lucky guests of honor.

Well, I couldn’t do it. There was this head, in front of me. It had singed eyebrows. CRACK!!! They broke open the skull. I couldn’t look. I couldn’t stand it. Thank goodness I was a trained actress, or I would have lost it all entirely right there–just watching, let alone eating! I could feel my gag reflex kick in…

My parents found it all a great adventure.

I thought I was going to DIE.

FORTUNATELY, my father found a nice way of sharing the brains around and *oops* there wasn’t enough left for me. Phew! But, it didn’t get me off the hook completely. I still had to eat the rotten animal’s leg. Which I did, with feigned grace and dignity.

I’m not sure at what point during the course of my goat-leg-eating that I casually excused myself, trying to make it to the bathroom in time. I didn’t make it. I rounded a corner where no one could see me and I purged my soul of the wretched beast. Oh what joy and rapture it was to have it all come back up and not sit inside me, stewing and burbling for a week.

I returned, charming and sweet. They were utterly delighted with me.

Fortunately, we left before I could tell anyone about the… uh… mess in the hallway. I mean, the only thing less comfortable than telling the impoverished village that you won’t eat their goat is telling them that you just ralphed up their goat in the church hallway. So, I sorta didn’t tell them.

I suspect that, upon discovery, they were no longer delighted with me…