Can You Resist?

I, being a almost strict-ish vegetarian who still likes the taste of meat, hate fast food commercials just as every woman has since the dawn of time. They usually feature a thin woman enjoying her Micky-dees. I'm sure, among the male population, this advertising is wildly effective. The business model is that you should tempt the heck out of your audience. When I glanced over at discarded box of Mcnuggets that was tossed on the side of the road I was faced with temptation worthy of the devil. In the McDonalds yellow they pass for gold "can you resist?" was making it's evil way from the cardboard to my hungry eyes. I'm now going to steal something that Heather Cherry does often on her blog and write an open letter.

Mcnuggets Have a website, complete with a pledge to eat them. A pledge?

Dear Chicken Mcnuggets,

Yes, I can resist. Do I want to? No.

Who named you a.nyway... Mcnugget? Nugget was an unattractive word by itself but then someone had to add the infamous "mc" to it to make it even more unattractive, but almost appetizing.

I don't get why you ask me if I can resist. If someone already bought the darn thing and that would be the only reason for having to look at the box why would you advertise it to them? They can't resist- that's why they bought it.

Why do you have to tempt people to steal their friend's already purchased Mcnuggets? What do you gain from it? Do you target innocent vegetarians like me who are still learning to resist? Do you plan on irresponsible people tossing their discarded boxes on the side of the road... is that your business model?

Mcnugget, my only explanation is you find gratification in my pain.

Mcnugget, you just keep on lovein' it" while you can!

Your mortal enemy,

P.S.

PS, I'm certainly not "lovein' it"!

BBQ Anyone?

Whenever I see some form of logo for pork, ham, bacon, ect. it usually includes a pig. Creepy logo makers even venture to sometimes have the pig appear in a apron to make sure that his belly does not get the pork he's frying on it. Yes, this is perfectly normal and accepted. You see this all the time, grocery stores, billboards on the interstate where they only cost about 25 cents, even on invitations to neighborhood BBQs.

In most of these illustrations the pig is smiling. Is he happy about the death of his fellow pig? Did he kill him himself? Is he happy that he is about to eat his friend? His expression, at first glance, does not seem very menacing, but sometimes the eyebrows are just arched enough to give our little porker an evil glare.

When I was younger I imagined people making him smile, threatening to have him fried by his friend too (at this age for some reason I thought that cartoons were just like actors).

This pig was cooking his friend and, somehow, making people want pork. First of all, who thought of the idea? More importantly, why did people adopt it? Is cannibalism humorous?

Does anyone even look closely at this type of thing? Maybe we've grown so accustomed to it no one cares.

Another similar logo is the famous cow wearing leather, or even more manly, bull wearing leather, but that post is for another day...

Cheese Please!

I haven't had cheese pizza after waiting in a line full of my own age group since I turned old enough to say "no, you can go right ahead". I hopefully wait in the back of the line with other vegetarians and some Jewish people on kosher diets. We chat, conspiring against the mass of cheese pizza hogging 7th graders, but, because we are the type of people who end up in the back of the line, no action ever comes of it. Our stomachs growl in unison, trying to provoke us into cutting. We all stand in a horizontal line in the back, no one in front or behind the other; an assembled mass of vegetarianism and mutted cries for cheese.

When we finally come to the front we hopefully peer into the buffet and then, finding no cheese, we move quitely along. We weren't even in line. Don't mind us.

Somehow we collect enough courage to confront the lunch lady who's expression was screaming "Don't make my job difficult!"

Us: "is there any cheese left?"

Lunch Lady: No.

Us: Will you be making anymore today?

Lunch Lady: No

Us: is there anything vegetarian?

Lunch Lady: You can pick off the sausage.

We all leave. We know that it leaves a taste and defeats the purpose. So we graze on the chips they sell.

I don't understand why the cafeteria even makes any sausage; everyone hates it. The pizza line concept makes no sense. The type of people who are vegetarians are usually the type that will let a hungry meat-eaters in front to take the coveted cheese pizza.

"No it's okay you can go right ahead"... ugh, curse my lack of assertiveness!

Anti-controversy-post-posting-note:

I have nothing against meat eaters, I apologize if I offended anyone. I'm a vegetarian for good reasons that I know thoroughly but I do not think meat-eaters are any worse than vegetarians. My vegetarianism was a personal decision so please do not judge me for it.

Lily, Disney Princesses, and Natural Selection

While reading on my back porch feeling extra sophisticated with tea and one-handed book reading skills, Oreo, destroyer of all, lurked in the shadow of the bird feeder. This deeply concerned the lovely Lily the labradoodle resulting in the most intimidating bark to ever escape any dog of her adorableness’s chops. Oreo, also a part time domesticated cat, decided she wanted nothing to do with it- not because she’s genuinely intimidated- she wasn’t in the mood.

At this point all of the cute, fuzzy creatures crawled out of hiding in a fashion worthy of an old Disney movie. A chipper little bird perched on our feeder with a song, it may just be my exaggerating nature, but it almost seemed like the bird was thanking Lily. Lily stood there, the feared and loved protector of all, with her little chocolate nose towards the wind and the bird- just watching. She was not causing any disturbance; she fit right in. I, on the other hand, received nervous glances from the squirrels, birds and even Lily every once in a while. Though I was lower on the food chain than most of them (herbivore), Lily was still trusted more.

Why can’t animals follow the Disney movie examples? If my life was a Disney movie the episode would have gone sort of like this:

I stroll through the forest with my beloved canine companion, Lily. I start to hum a random tune and some brave bird chirps in, of course in perfect harmony. A misanthropic kitty is hiding in the corner and Lily invites the cat to join the song. At this point my meaningless melody develops into a slightly more meaningful song with lyrics. The chorus of us sounds loud and the original brave bird perches on my finger and then slips with adorable cuteness.

I excluded the part where I somehow managed to put myself in mortal peril to be saved by a prince charming; not even Princessparkle would ever. I also ignored the fact that I can not sing for the life of me, this is Disney right?

It is no wonder Disney princesses and their singing companions are extinct; natural selection at work. How would any of these creatures ever survive?

Just another day of me wishing I was a princess…