Niall is getting very close to declaring his personal vegetarianism.  I’ve been wondering if he would, and kind of expecting that he would, but trying not to push him.  He is a very sensitive soul, and the recent business with the cats has exposed him to death for really the first time, and he can generalize pain now, so the layout is pretty straightforward from here.

He has told me before that he eats fish, but not real fish.  Then he told me that he doesn’t eat fish with faces (this is, I swear, completely unprompted.)  Last night I ordered dinner for him.  He was asking me what I had eaten before.  He asked me if I had eaten a ‘gator.

N:  A real ‘gator?!?

J:  Yes.

N:  A whole ‘gator?!?

J:  No.

N:  And have you eaten fish?

J:  Yes.  So have you.

N:  (Big pause.)  Real fish?

J:  Yes.  When you eat fish, you’re eating real fish.  Usually.

N:  Have you eaten really big fish?

J:  Sometimes.  But I try not to eat many big fish.

N:  Why?

J:  Because there aren’t very many of them, and if we eat them all, they’ll be gone.

N:  Gone?

J:  Yes.  If we eat them up.  But Mommy doesn’t eat any fish.

N:  Why?

J:  I think because she doesn’t want to hurt the fish.

N:  It hurts the fish?

J:  Well, yes.  But I don’t think fish hurt too much.  (Alan Rickman intones in the background, “The benefits of a Nirvana education.”)

N:  (Hard drive grinding, grinding, grinding away.  He’s far away.  Then the light comes back on.)  I don’t want to hurt ammamulls.

J:  Not cows?

N:  No.

J:  Not pigs?

N:  No.

J:  Not birds?

N:  No.

J:  Not fish?

N:  No!

J:  OK, then that’s being called a vegetarian.  You can tell people that, or just tell them that you don’t eat animals.

N:  (Trying it out.)  I don’t eat ammamulls.

J:  OK.

N:  (With determination.)  But I do eat things made from ammamulls.

J:  The animal has to die for you to make food from it.

N:  You have to die the animals?

J:  Yes.

N:  You have to die the animals?

J:  Yes.

N:  How do they die the animals?

J:  (OK, really didn’t want it to come to this.  So forgive me for this one, Jenn.)  Well, usually they shoot them in the head.

N:  They shoot them in the head?

J:  Yes.  Cows, anyway.

N:  I don’t want to hurt cows.

J:  OK.

N:  I don’t eat ammamulls.

J:  OK.

N:  (With determination.)  But I do eat things made from ammamulls.

J:  OK.

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:34:02 +0000
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