Excuse Me, Sir! There's a Corpse in My Lunch

Yesterday afternoon, I was invited to go to lunch with a few of my coworkers.  We met at a restaurant and all ordered like normal.  Looking over the menu, I realized there weren’t very many choices for me that didn’t include meat.  My eye caught a delicious sounding Gourmet Mac N’ Five Cheese.  The only problem was it came with a chicken breast and topped with bacon.  When the server got to me, I told him I just wanted the mac n’ cheese without the bacon or chicken.  Seemed simple enough, right?  Well, not so much.

Several minutes later, he came up to me and said, “Hey man, about your mac n’ cheese.  They put the chicken with it and I told them to take it off.  They also put the bacon on there but I took that off as well but there’s still a little bit left in the dish.  Is that cool?”

Um, no. That's not how I ordered it, rendering that not cool at all.

I made a face of hesitation and said, “Well, um, I’m sorry but no.”

The server responded by sucking in his teeth and looking up at the ceiling, saying, “Aw, man,” as if making the dish again was going to be this huge ordeal.

“You know what,” I said.  “It’s okay.  Don’t worry about it.  I’ll take it like that.  It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I don’t want to cause a problem.  It’s fine, it’s fine.”  I mean, he did say there was only a little bit of bacon, after all.  I suppose I could just pick around it.

“Okay, cool.”

“Alright.”

Several minutes more later, he brings me this dinky dish with a handful of penne pasta covered in a watery white sauce.  And it was filled with bacon.  Not the little bit he had described earlier.  There was more bacon than there was pasta.  There was more bacon than there are days in the year.  There was an entire chopped up pig mingling in my freagin' mac n’ cheese.  Ugggh.

Instead of saying anything, I just tried to scrape off what bacon I could from each noodle and then ate it.  It wasn’t even that warm.  It wasn’t even that cheesy.  I mean, the description was gourmet and five cheese, fancy and delicious sounding cheeses, cheeses that I have never even heard of, and yet it tasted like a canned alfredo sauce.  Needless to say, the entire thing was a huge disappointment.  When the server first plopped the plate down in front of me, a coworker sitting across from me asked, “Is that your appetizer?”

“No,” I said flatly.  “This is the main dish.”

He then stuck his nose up in the air and said, “Oh.  Man, I’d be pissed.”

Yeah.  I would be as well, if I weren't such a nice fella.

The lady sitting next to me said, "Why don't you tell them to take it back?"

"Cause I don't want to be difficult," I responded as I attempted to choke down the pig and penne.

And it's true.  I really don't.  And I know that I wouldn't have been difficult but that dude's teeth sucking suggested to me that I would be difficult if I had requested that I just get my food the way I ordered it in the first place.  I know that I'm a picky eater but frankly, I've always felt my picky nature benefited everyone that ever served me food.  I know that when I would go to Subway and ask for a chicken sub (before I became a vegeterian), I always wanted chicken and cheese and that was all.  The sub maker would always drop their jaw and look at me in disbelief.

"That's all?!" they'd ask.

Yes.  That is all.  And heck, I'm making your job easier.  I'm not asking you to put every ingredient available on the sub like some customers do.  I'm not asking you to put mayo on one side of the sandwich and two quarters of a squirt of mustard on the left side of the turkey right between the tomato and soggy lettuce, like some customers do.  Chicken and cheese and that's it!

Same with this order.  I was saving the cook from preparing any chicken or bacon.  It's not like the chicken is mixed in with the cheese sauce or anything.  I wasn't asking anyone to extract every little piece of meat from the dish.  I basically just wanted a big plate of macaroni and five cheeses.  Seemed simple enough to me but apparently it wasn't and apparently created another dish of just macaroni and five cheeses was also too difficult so screw it.  I'll take the dish.  I won't complain.  I also won't be satisfied.  Oh yeah, and the dish that was only slightly larger than my fist was seven bucks.

It just sucks being a vegetarian living in a carnivorous world.  Meat is everywhere and it's hard to avoid.  I feel like an outsider looking in.  And I feel very much like a leper when I tell people I don't eat meat.  The first question is always a resounding "WHY?"  as people's faces seize up in shock and horror.  Explaining it doesn't help matters because they always respond with, "Well, I love steak too much" or "meat is too delicious."  Why yes, yes it is.  I, too, had a fondness for chicken so don't think I don't understand where you are coming from.  I just wish you'd understand where I was coming from.  I know a lot of people don't mean to but sometimes they make me feel silly for my beliefs.  And that's why I didn't make a fuss over my bacon-laden lunch.  I could just imagine that server going in the back and saying to the cook, "It's just bacon.  What's the big deal?"  I hear that question a lot.  And I also get a lot of "Well, just take the meat off and it'll be fine."  That especially bothers me.   No, it's not fine.  When I hear that or get the impression that people are thinking that, I always say, "Well, what if I put a dead baby's arm on your pizza.  You know, just let those dead baby juices sink into the cheese and the sauce.  Now, peel that arm off and eat the pizza.  It's fine!"  Just as you probably wouldn't eat a pizza that had a dead baby arm on it, I won't eat a pizza, and except for this instance, won't eat pasta that has any meat in it because I feel the same way about the pig or cow or chicken as you do about the dead baby.  It's really just a matter of preference and no matter how common or uncommon those preferences might be, they should be respected.

Some parts of me feel like I should have been more assertive.  I wouldn't have been out of line by asking them to redo my food because, well, it was their mistake for getting it wrong in the first place.  And mistakes happen!  It's no big deal.  I should have just said that I would prefer not to have any meat in my dish and if it wasn't any trouble, I would like a meat-free plate.  I wouldn't have been rude or peturbed.  I wouldn't have gone on a tirade like some customers do.  I know how it is to deal with a-hole customers so I always tell myself that I won't be like that.  Plus, it's just common decency not to be rude to people, even if they did make a mistake.  Still, I felt like I would have been a problem if I had spoken up so I didn't.

Just another example of the hardships of being a herbivore.  Yet, I endure.  I just hope my efforts are paying off in some way.  Although I stopped losing weight, feel like crap, can't eat anything healthy and face the awkward judgments of others, I'm still going....strong?  Well, I'm still going, anyway.  That's gotta count for something.