Don't Have a Cow!

I read this post from my friend Courtney's blog and it reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend recently. My friend is a vegetarian for "moral reasons." (FYI - the intent of this post is to entertain you; I will not give my opinion on the beef-making process.)

I was telling my friend that some of my favorite memories were at my Granddad's ranch. There was so much space (about 100 acres): the forest area was beautiful, the ponds were fun to look for water moccasins, riding around on 4-wheelers was fun with my siblings (Billy used to scare the s%!* out of me on those), walking to the edge of the property to see if we could find prancing deer, peeing my pants because I couldn't make it all the way back to the house and I was too embarrassed to go in front of my brothers, climbing trees, accidentally stepping in "cow patties," my grandma's attempt at singing to wake us up, going on the tractor with my granddad to feed the cows at 5:30am- it was all great fun. Being sensitive to my friend's feelings, I left out the fact that we loved to go fishing and that my uncle taught us how to shoot rifles and shotguns out there.

So my friend asks, "did you ride horses?" Ummmm... the thing is, my grandad didn't have horses; he raised cows - the very thing she is VEHEMENTLY against! How do I say this? Oh well, no matter what, she will be offended. "Actually he didn't really have horses." Please don't ask! Please don't ask!
"Oh. But you had cows?"
Crap... "Ya! They just kind of hung out all day. I even got to watch one give birth," I say to try to steer the conversation.
"What did he do with the cows?" She's no dummy... she knows where this is going. I just gotta say it.
I nervously answered, "My granddad took really good care of the cows throughout their entire life. He fed them good food, let them graze his grass all day, let them just lie around and "moo." Then when it was time for them to move on, he would sell them so that they could make really good beef and stuff because they were taken care of so well."
With small tears in her eyes she replies, "Andrea, you don't have to skirt around it. Just say, 'My granddad fattened up cows so he could make money as they were sent off to the slaughterhouse to die for no purpose but feed people things they think they need."
"Well, geez... if that's how you want to think about it..."