All They Are Saying, Is "Give Peas a Chance"

We who live in sunny, star-studded Los Angeles are often envied by people who live in less glamorous, climactically inhospitable places, such as Embarrass, Minnesota. But I say to residents of Embarrass, Minnesota and other towns and hamlets across this vast nation: Don’t envy us till you've walked a mile for parking in our Birkenstocks. We have plenty of problems of our own.   

First, there is no parking in Los Angeles. None. As of last week, there were four spots left, but I just heard that the city sold them on eBay for ten million dollars to Sony Pictures. Sony plans to use them to park one of their catering trailers. Worse than the lack of parking is our surfeit of actors, whose unnatural good-looks can wreak havoc on a community’s self-esteem.

Yet these pale in comparison to our most severe, and best-kept secret problem: vegans. I’m not kidding, the place is swarming with them. Next to Portland, Oregon, L.A. has more vegans per capita than any other city west of Bhopal.

You may ask, “What do you have against vegans? They never hurt anybody, not even a bean sprout!” True, vegans are generally very nice. I have never seen one cut in line, they are obviously eco-friendly, and if you go out to lunch with one he certainly won’t ask for a bite of your hamburger. No, vegans are too clever for overt manifestations of greed or violence. Yet do not underestimate their impact or their agenda.

For example, yesterday I bought groceries at my neighborhood wholesome foods type of store, where the cashier, Blaze, and I exchanged pleasantries about the Thanksgiving holiday. We each had enjoyed the holiday very much. "Have you had your fill of turkey for a while?" I asked, continuing our friendly banter as we bagged my groceries together in the spirit of comradely cooperation.

"I don't eat turkey," Blaze said, deftly packing a dozen yogurt containers in the recyclable paper bag that would probably become my next shopping bag.

"Ah, vegetarian?"

"No, vegan," he said, carefully adding a dozen eggs into the bag. Eggs that he, personally, would not touch on moral grounds.

As soon as he uttered the V-word, I knew everything I needed to know about Blaze. I knew, for example, that he was wearing canvas shoes and carried a wallet made either of nylon or erstaz leather. I would have laid odds on who he voted for in the last election, that he lay awake at night in a panic over global warming, that he had posters of sweet-looking sheep in his apartment. I knew that he considered himself a political activist, and that he thought Yoko Ono was musically gifted. He brushed his teeth with a cruelty-free toothbrush before getting into bed and curling up with a book about biofuels. I mean, I’d only met the guy three minutes before and he already bored me. 

Their utter predictability is only one reason why vegans are trouble. If you meet someone and learn that she prefers fish to chicken, or vanilla to chocolate, at least the rest of her remains a mystery. You have yet to discover her personality, politics, and her position on Wal-Mart. But once a vegan has spilled the mung beans about her refusal to eat meat, chicken, fish, eggs, and dairy, or cover herself with a down comforter, her dossier is complete.

Although he hid it well, Blaze obviously viewed me with disdain. Since his diet was really a political manifesto for the cruelty-free, bio-sustainability lifestyle, did he really have a choice? He knew that just hours ago, I had eaten turkey. And I would do it again! And chicken, too! I, who was heedless of the erosion of our topsoil needed to support animal agriculture! I, who consume animal fats, flirting with hypertension and obesity! I, who couldn't even be bothered to have bought the cage-free eggs! How he must have loathed me.

I wanted to redeem myself. So, in the spirit of promoting mutual understanding, I asked Blaze what he had eaten on Thanksgiving. This was a mistake. His answer reminded me of the wisdom of never asking a question if you aren’t prepared to hear the answer.

“First I took a sprouted tortilla wrap with avocado. . . .”, he began, like a waiter enthusing over the evening's specials at a four-star restaurant. He listed many delicacies at his feast, including soy "chiken," gluten "steaks," seitan "burgers," bean spelt oat spread, and other types of "food." I tried to appear interested, secretly giving thanks that our turkey was not the one that had received the presidential pardon. It had been so moist and juicy, and my new recipe for gravy, which had taken hours of careful simmering, was so delicious that it would have been a crime to waste it on tofurky.   

“What are you going to give up next?” I asked, him, just joshing around.

“I’m probably going raw soon,” he said in total seriousness. “Living in this polluted air, you’ve got to detoxify," Blaze said, giving a little shudder. I nodded in assent, as if I, too, couldn’t wait to give the heave-ho to all every type of food in the universe except for Tebetan goji berries and germinated and dehydrated cashews.

"Well, I hope you have good teeth!" I said, not knowing how else to respond. I hope he took it the right way.

Mercifully, we had reached the last bag, since I had run out of questions about Blaze's dietary plans and was in no mood to begin a discussion on globalization and free trade. I had to hand it to the guy: he seemed pretty energetic for a man who hadn't eaten a steak since 1985. I held my head high as I headed out the door, still reeling from the contempt he hid so well, yet still must have keenly felt, for my carnivorous ways. I refused his offer of help to my big gas guzzling car.

Guys like Blaze are all over town, here in L.A. Girls, too. They are easy to spot, since their cars usually sport many bumper stickers. One exercise teacher I know, no wider than an exclamation mark, is also a vegan. I realized this when  she insisted that we in the West really have it all backwards because we do not spend enough time squatting in our daily lives. In more enlightened countries, such as Nambia, people squat when eating, reading, and doing other things. I was tempted to ask whether they got stuck squatting because they had eaten too many Tebetan goji berries, but I didn't want to open myself to accusations of being a haughty imperialist sort.

Look, there's no way I'm going vegan, but I can at least try to love vegans, which means I cannot try to eat them up in a philosophical argument. So all those who may dream of the good life in Southern California, don't say you haven't been warned. Not only will you not have a place to park, but guys like Blaze are waiting to bag your groceries, secretly pitying you with their vegan eyes.

Judy Gruen is an award-winning humorist whose latest book is "The Women's Daily Irony Supplement." Read more of her work on www.judygruen.com, or better yet, order her new book for the holidays! 

We are now in the midst of that madcap season where everywhere we turn, we confront spooks, goblins, diabolical attempts to frighten us to death, skeletons jumping out of closets, and masked short people ringing bells and demanding treats on pain of extortion.

Naturally, I am talking about the upcoming mid-term elections.

If you thought that I was referring to Halloween, it would be a natural mistake and I would think no less of your intelligence. After all, both Halloween and political elections have an uncanny amount in common. Ask youself: How easy is it to tell the difference these days between the horror festivals organized by fans of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and the screamfests served up on political radio and TV shows? In these waning days of October, you aren't safe anywhere, not even the supermarket. Outside the market, ardent political volunteers try to lasso you into debates about civil rights and terror networks. You might make it past them, but only after you engaged in a lengthy and passionate debate that has left you exhausted and hungry. Then, you will enter the store and have to face down acres of Halloween candy on every aisle.

Besides, it's just too hard to pay attention to both campaigns simultaneously, so generally one must choose between the two. My decision to give up Halloween was easy, and not only because I never learned how to carve a jack o' lantern with any finesse. Halloween and I were finished by the time I was nine. That's the year I dressed up like Sally Field in "The Flying Nun" and made my mother drive me to another neighborhood where I hoped to "accidentally" bump into Mike, on whom I had developed my first crush. Mike was not only very handsome, but "rich," at least compared to the rest of us. His father owned a dry cleaning store in Hollywood, and his family was known to employ a cleaning lady every day. This was heady stuff!

That night, I wasn't so much the Flying Nun as I was the Stalking Nun, lying in wait near Mike's bushes, hoping to recognize my heartthrob under a cape and mask. I didn't see him, but soon after, when he realized I had designs on him, he cut a wide swatch to avoid me. That same Halloween I heard my mother admit that after she sent me to bed, she took some of the best candy out of my stash and kept it for herself. Compared with these bitter revelations, the disappointments of political campaigns have been mild.

I also never went in for that whole extortion thing. "Give me a giant Snickers bar or I'll tee-pee your house" always struck a wrong chord, even if the message was delivered in code: "Trick or Treat!" I figure, if there's any extorting to do in a neighborhood, at least let the stakes be a little higher. "Hand over five thousand dollars and I'll see about getting those giant potholes on your street filled" is more expensive, but at least it's more logical.

Yes, hobgoblins and ghoulish laughter are plentiful this time of year, and one never knows from which corner they will strike. Between the campaign ads on the radio and TV and the hanging skeletons on the neighbor's house, it's no wonder the wind is howling and leaves are falling off trees. Who isn't petrified of what's coming next?

I used to enjoy looking down on those poor dumb shlubs who loved Halloween and horror movies. What kind of dolt would pay to be frightened out of his wits? Who would volunteer to watch celluloid fantasies of the most hideous crimes imaginable? But I realize I may be no better. Like an excited teenager tiptoeing from room to room in a haunted house waiting for a spider-webbed skeleton to fall on his head and make him scream, I indulge in my own, arguably tamer version. I open the newspaper each morning searching for the latest election accusations, scandals, and shrill cries for special prosecutors, usually delivered with a great gnashing of teeth. Some are amusing, such as the congressman who claimed he had no idea how fifty-thousand smackers ended up in his freezer. ("It came as a surprise to me, but I hear that cash stays fresher longer that way.") Some are tragic, some are graphic, and reactions from the Other Side are often more terrifying than anything served up in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

So this fall, don't look for me gallivanting in pumpkin patches in a witch's robe with blacked-out teeth. Following the news is spooky enough. Just yesterday after finishing the newspaper I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror, and darned if I didn't look like I was wearing a fright wig.