I’ve had some pretty memorable conversations with my friend Jake in the past. Even celebrated his idiosyncrasies from time to time, publicly.

This evening’s exchange, which arose in an email thread over some unrelated issue, struck me as one for the ages.

It all started, see, when I signed off a message with my standard epithet for him – Meatman. (He’s staunchly carnivorous, and suspicious of any food that isn’t bread or dead animal, or some combination of the two.)

In response, naturally, he called me “Veg-Head.”

Which is fair. I have been a vegetarian for some time now, and goodness knows there are many worse things he could have called me. For some reason, though, I was moved to consider the name literally, and that led me to reply with this:

Gross thought:

Since birth, Veda has never consumed any dead animals — only milk, vegetables, pasta and so forth. Her mother also ate no meat during the gestation. Therefore my daughter’s noggin, along with indeed the remainder of her, is constructed entirely of matter formed by metabolic processes that used plant matter as their fuel. Her skull, skin, eyes, nasal passages, and even the tiny teeth she’s currently extruding from her gums… all of it grown without meat.

My kid is, in a very literal sense, a veg-head.

Strong stuff to discuss, particularly around dinnertime. But I must relinquish the Disgustibus Maximus throne to Jake, whose reply took the grossness of my notion and raised it several – maybe several dozen – notches.

Grosser thought:

I would also think that if we were flying together over the Arctic, with Veda in tow, should we crash and get stranded in a remote mountain pass – that she would be very tasty.  Kinda like grain-fed beef.

:)

Take a bow, Meatman. I can’t believe you went there.