I’d be Elliot

Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: 2019/05 - May

When I was four, my mother brought home a beautiful Red Snapper and slammed it on the countertop with a thunk.  It was exquisite … red and silver scales like tiny over-lapping coins, a magical beast with a tail worthy of a mermaid. 

As I puzzled how it was going to swim without any water, my mom, my Freddie Kruger of a mother, brandished a knife.  I screamed. 

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“What are you doing?” I cried.

“I’m going to filet it and cook it for supper.” 

“But it’s got a head on it!” I protested.

“Yes …” my mother said hesitantly.

I thought quick and hard, then asked, “Does a hamburger have a head on it?”

“Sure.  It comes from a cow,” Mother said.

I had my first big epiphany.  We had been eating living things.  Things with heads.  Things that could think.  Things that probably had feelings. 

Terrified, I wondered, “What next?  Will we be eating bunnies and chicks?”

So I declared a strike for a week and went meatless.  But a trip to a restaurant that served buttery hamburger deliciousness was too much to bear, so I caved and washed everything down with a chaser of black bottom pie.  Strike ended.

After a lifetime battle of to-meat-or-not-to-meat, I finally conceded to giving up four-leggers over a decade ago.

I still wonder though: Is it animal abuse to kill and eat them?  I asked my 11-year-old grandson, Elliot, his opinion and he said,  “While I am passionate about eliminating animal abuse, especially against dogs, cats, and hamsters, cows are not an endangered species.  And they fart methane.  So I believe it’s okay to eat hamburgers and stop all the farting.”

There you have it straight from the mind of a visionary.  Oh, to be 11, when things were simple.  Wait a sec.  At four I was already a mental wreck.  If I could do it all again, I’d be