Hi, Meat My Sister

My younger sister and I shared an apartment when I moved to Dallas a few years ago.

She is a very easy-going and low-maintenance young lady. Even when considering the behavior of her blatantly homosexual-bipolar-passive/aggressive-hyperactive-nocturnal cat, she is generally a pleasant person with whom to live.

However, our time together was not all puppydogs and rainbows. A certain issue slowly developed which --after being allowed to evolve unchecked and ignored-- threatened to undermine our years of goodwill to each other. This issue began as an almost imperceptible fissure, and eventually grew into an enormous rift between us. In the end, the gulf between big brother and little sister had never been wider, thanks to this issue and our reluctance to face it:

During our Sibling Gilded Age, little sissy gradually acquired an unfortunate and abnormally strong aversion towards meat.

No big deal, you say...

You try to defend your manhood while being forced to cook veggie patties on the barbecue grill. You try to look tough and mean while pushing a grocery cart filled with 7 boxes of SmartStart cereal (the box with the picture of the lean woman on it). You try to preen and strut and look cool and manly for the girls at Kroger (near SMU!!) while browsing the best price on Veggie Slices cheese.

After a while, your spirit will be broken, and you will believe that it's perfectly normal to slice up an eggplant, douse it with ketchup, and call it a "burger."

I should just cook for myself, right?? It's not that easy. Cooking for myself proved to be just as-- if not more-- demoralizing. Example:

Me: "Hey, I found a nice 6-pound roast on sale today!"
Little Sis: (silence; blank stare)
Me: "Damn you, vegan!!"

How can she not care about this awesome roast I found?! What's wrong with her?

But as time passed, she just didn't care... She wasn't mean-spirited or vindictive about it, it just seemed that meat meant nothing to her. I might as well have been speaking Yiddish, it would have generated the same response from her...

Me: "unintelligible words in Yiddish about a roast"
Little Sis: (silence; blank stare)

or

Me: "Hey, I figured out Einstein's String Theory, and also the inner workings of the internal combustion engine, and I also found T-bones on sale at Kroger!"
Little Sis: (silence; blank stare)

How frustrating this was!! I loved meat. I loved a nice, bloody steak as a weekend treat. I loved a juicy hamburger. And this person with whom I shared my days and living quarters was acting as if meat was from another planet.

Little Sis: "Ehh... I just don't like it anymore."

Eventually her indifference morphed into a full-fledged hatred of all things derived from the cow:

Little Sis: "I hate meat patties, I hate roast, I hate fajitas, I hate brisket, I hate filet mignon..."

I worry about her boyfriend. He is a man's man, among the manliest of men... but it's a slippery slope he treads. I know how easy it can be to get tangled in that web of burgerless hamburgers and steakless chicken-fried steak. I experienced first-hand how a good, meat-loving man can succumb to Little Sis' anti-meat agenda. Before long, she will have him foolishly raving about her BocaBurger spaghetti and "meat" sauce. Eventually, he'll believe there is nothing wrong with a red-blooded American male "enjoying" a dinner of cous cous, zucchini, and spinach salad.

Well, there is something wrong with that! And I, for one, am glad I moved the hell out.

Poor boyfriend. It's only a matter of time...