JAN’S MOVING–TOO-MUCH-SHIT SALE OF MY BOOKS!

(You don’t want to pass on deals this good!)

This is from a recent exchange at the natural foods store. Hippy-dippy clerk ringing me up: Thank you for bringing your own bags!

Me [ready to pounce]: Of course! I think every little thing matters; and every big thing 😊

Hippy-dippy clerk: Me too, totally.

Me: That’s why I’ve been vegan for over a dozen years, and why I’m vasectomized & never having kids—the two best personal things you can ever do for the planet, and of course for animals.

HDC: Aw, I LOVE animals . . . unfortunately I can’t be vegetarian because of my blood type, otherwise I’d totally be on board.

Me: ….What blood type is that? Tiger’s blood? [laughing good-naturedly] Do you have tiger’s blood, like Charlie Sheen?

HDC: [chuckles sour-naturedly] No, it just doesn’t work. Some blood types don’t handle it well. I tried before and didn’t feel well at all.

Me: Hm. Drug addicts don’t feel well when they’re getting clean either . . .

HDC [taken aback; something in her eyes hints at eventual revelation of shockingly obvious truth]: Well . . . not everybody [trails off, makes herself distracted by register] . . . okay, your total is $37.18.

Me [taking out my debit card to swipe it, increasing the volume of my deep voice to a pitch even louder than my normal speaking voice so that the three people in line behind me hear loud and clear, even if they’re not trying to listen]: Either way, the whole blood-type thing is a total unscientific fallacy, I urge you to please google it so you can see the mountains of evidence that shows anybody can (and should) be vegan at any stage of the life cycle—pregnancy, infancy, elderly as shit, recovering from injury, pro athlete, doesn’t matter. Blood type is completely irrelevant. Unless you have tiger’s blood, I suppose.

(CONT. FROM FACEBOOK)—

HDC: Hm. I’ll definitely have to check that out [spoken in a robotic placatory tone—she’s definitely not gonna check that out]. But I am ALWAYS very serious about giving thanks to the animal for its sacrifice.

Me: [laughing not-so-good-naturedly] It’s so thoughtful of them to sign up and move into factory farms so they can get their throats cut for us! [looks into distance w/ thoughtful affectation] Some Gave All, and . . . the Rest Also Gave All.

HDC [very uncomfortable, like a religious person confronted by the real world—would stomp my testicle-satchel if not at work]: Yeah, well . . . go ahead and push “Yes,” would you like a receipt? okay, here you go!

Me [pulling out and handing her a business card for my writing, cuz no one is safe]: Here, check this out! And please do check out the research on ANYBODY being vegan.

HDC: I’ll *definitely* do that [thinly veiled sarcasm because work—she probably won’t].

It can be so emotionally draining, exhausting, to constantly feel like you’re under attack just for being yourself when you’re merely trying to live a life as socially/morally responsible as possible. Having to listen to preposterous and often straight-up boilerplate tropes literally every single day you interact with non-vegans. Each of these statements involves misinformation and/or foolishness that could’ve easily been nipped in the bud with just a cursory little examination of the facts. (This willful ignorance and apathy is generally speaking one of the biggest reasons I’m a lazy bastard and spend multiple days every single week at home or completely avoiding non-wife human contact (plus, you know, the whole being disabled thing).) It can be a depressing, spirit-withering grind. I get it; trust me, I understand! Oftentimes it feels like you’ve been slapped in the face by the inanity or apathy.

This by no means applies only to animal rights. Every progressive social issue encounters it (with varying degrees of blinding idiocy). For example: the aggressive denial, intellectual/moral bankruptcy, and stubborn feet-stamping dismissiveness I constantly receive when using factual numbers and charts and rock solid logic to demonstrate that the U.S. “justice” system is inherently racist and predatory toward black men—that it’s broken beyond repair. But nope! they don’t want to hear it. Most people in America seem to prefer the insulated, comfortable lie (even knowing it may well be a lie) over the inconvenient truth. So long as they can track down some sort of justification for their preferred false beliefs—no matter how ludicrous, moronic, or brazenly specious they are.

But we should not let it stop us from speaking out. We CANNOT let it stop us. Speaking out and, even better, acting out are ethical and plain old practical necessities. We’re sadly trapped in a time when the planet is calamitously imperiled, when human beings and our population and consumption habits are quite literally killing the Earth’s ability to sustain life (in addition to the concurrent and inextricably entwined genocide being committed against wild and domesticated animals alike). No. HELL NO! The comfortable-idiots’ human supremacist status quo can remain intact only if it simultaneously rips apart the webs that sustain all life. The two cannot ever coexist peacefully. This is a basic mathematical truth.

So speak up and speak out in support of the oppressed and the powerless whenever and wherever you can, in real life and on social media, even if you think the person you’re talking to doesn’t give a shit.

Because you never know who else might be listening or watching.