Thou Shalt Not Partake of Other People's Cookies

Thou shalt not partake of other people's cookies. Unless you are offered a cookie, purchased a cookie, or baked your own cookies you should not be eating any cookies. Your mother probably didn't tolerate your taking cookies from the cookie jar or the box of cookies or whatever kind of cookie receptacle she had without permission. So when you discover cookies in your cupboard that you did not purchase you do not take them out of the cupboard, eat half of one cookie and leave the other half sitting on top of the box to leave a greasy stain and force someone else to clean the remaining cookie up. Because you know what happens when you do that? The owner of the cookie finds out what you've done, saves the cookie as evidence to show you when they confront you and then throws the cookie out the window because you do not deserve to eat the rest of it.

Thou shalt not taste the sweet nectar of other people's juice. Unless those other people have offered you their juice you should not be drinking it. Considering the fact that you never purchase juice for yourself one would figure that you do not drink juice. Other people should therefore rightly not have to be concerned that you will drink their juice. It will upset them if you do drink it. Especially when other people do not have a car and have in fact carried that juice home from the grocery store using their own two arms and legs while you yourself have a car and can transport as much delicious juice, soda, milk, alcohol, watermellons and large bags of flour as will fit in your vehicle.

Thou shalt not eat of the fruits of other people's labor. If you desire to eat home-cooked food then you must cook it yourself or trade for it in some manner. I do not care if the trade-off is visiting relatives, acquiring a spouse or significant other, or out-right payment in some manner. But one does not simply take the home-cooking of some other person when it has not been offered to them. One does not eat three quarts of a particularly expensive soup which took hours to prepare without giving something to the preparer who also procured all of the ingredients and brought them back to their kitchen by means of their own feet and arms. One does not make a sandwich using bread that someone else bought the ingredients for and baked themselves- particularly not when one already has their own store-bought bread in the cupboard.

Bad Punchline: Three Vegetarians Cook a Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the United States and anyone else who follows crazy American traditions and happy twenty-fourth of November to everyone else. Between the fact that today is a national holiday where I live (my job is closed and everything) and that I am still banging my head against the fifty thousand word total needed to successfully complete NaNoWriMo and the exceedingly early hour at which this was posted you might be able to tell I wrote this post up in advance. (Over a month in advance, actually.) But also six weeks ahead of schedule I came up with a (hopefully) funny joke for you to enjoy.

Today, for the third year running, my parents are coming up for Thanksgiving. Despite the fact that my brother, sister-in-law, and myself are vegetarians we believe that family traditions are important. Thanksgiving just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a giant meal cooking in the kitchen. Not only that but all three of us feel the need to include the standard dishes our families had when we were kids. Even though both our families are from the same state we have very different idea of what Thanksgiving dinners ought to consist of. The first year we not only poisoned my nephew (we hadn't yet learned he was allergic to peanutbutter) but also ended up with enough pie to eat for a month. Last year we had our friend Sean over and I remember very doggedly telling him a story I can't now recall as I tried to ignore my mother throwing up in the living room. This year for non-family members I had a special invitation message: "Bringing food or alcohol is mandatory because we're poor. You may also need to bring a chair. We ask that you kindly leave your age at the door but entertainment should be well-covered because what could be funnier than three vegetarians trying to cook a turkey?"

Living as Roommates

Roommate
Does (did) most of the dishes.
Takes out the trash most often.
Sweeps occasionally (pretty much all our apartment ever gets swept).
Sometimes cleans up in other ways.
Once a week (tops) he might give me a ride somewhere.
Buys toilet paper (though rarely the same quality and not often the same amount) roughly every other time we need it.
Holds responsibility for paying rent to our landlord (actually transferring the money over, I mean, I write him a check and his brother also gives him money to contribute to the rent).
Has the electric bill in his name (for which I pay him 1/3 or 1/2 depending on whether his brother is contributing or not).
Owns the television, playstation, and the majority of games and movies in our apartment.
Has (and pays for) the Netflix account we all use to watch movies and television shows as we don't have cable, satellite, or even a antenna to pick up free stations.
Has been unemployed since the beginning of march (three and a half months after we moved in and we have currently lived here for eight and a half months). Receives unemployment and foodstamps.


Me
Occasionally does dishes. Rarely forgets to at least rinse them. Often wshes/rinses dirty dishes to reuse rather than use clean ones.
Takes out the trash sometimes.
Rarely sweeps.
Sometimes cleans up in other ways.
Enjoys cooking and often makes food and shares said food.
Does not complain that eggs (frequently), spices (frequently), milk (sometimes), coffee (often), butter (frequently), peanut butter (often), and other foodstuffs (constantly) paid for and carried home myself (as I do not, after all, own/drive a car or frequently get rides from my roommate) are used/eaten by other people.
Does not complain that toothpaste and mouthwash disappear at a much more rapid rate than if I were the only one using them.
Buys toilet paper (the kind I wish we had all the time) every other time and then some that we need it.
Has the highspeed internet with which we stream Netflix movies/shows, browse the web, shoot zombies with people around the world in real time (that's all him, not me, I've never liked first-person shooters), and god only knows what else (porn, probably) in my name and pays the full amount for it because after splitting the $30 dollar charge for the first few months I decided to get $54 dollar a month internet just after roommate became unemployed and thought I would be nice and not charge him for it until he became employed again.
Bought a $210 8,000 BTU airconditioner when the weather in combination with our third-floor apartment made living unbearable and allowed the airconditioner to be installed in the living room and not my bedroom.
Covers for roommate and brother of roommate by lending gas money and other stuff between paychecks (which is sometimes not returned in full).
Has been employed for almost two solid years with the same company, makes minimum wage, and manages to keep my head above water despite working part-time.


Brother of Roommate (living with us)
Did the dishes twice just after moving in and once in the past couple days after roommate declared he didn't want to do other people's dishes any more.
Occasionally takes out the trash.
Does not sweep.
Does not clean up in other ways.
Frequently leaves dirty dishes around the apartment, does not rinse his dishes, and rather than rinsing out his glass and using the same one he used for water to hold juice and later water again uses three different ones in one day.
Reuses his towels many times and leaves the stinky things in the bathroom.
Sleeps on our couch (making it difficult to have guests) and leaves dirty clothing around living room not to mention the fact that I cannot use anything in the living room before noon (about which time I am often getting ready for work).
Has bought toilet paper once since living with us.
Never has any money (despite making around a hundred dollars a week more than I do, while my roommate gets unemployment for nearly as much money as I make not to mention foodstamps) and struggles to give roommate $200 bucks to cover some rent and electric.
Attracts emotional drama like a guy who golfs in lightening storms.


So tell me... does that add up? Because somehow it doesn't seem to come out evenly for me. That the guy who makes the most money pays the least for rent and utilities (though he does sleep on our couch, granted)? Funnily enough the months when roommate's brother was basically at our apartment constantly (and I've yet to mention that he works forty hours a week but does them consecutively and gets to sleep while there, of course so he is here a lot) except while working and to actually sleep my roommate did not complain about the dishes. Oh. And when I say "does the dishes" I mean that we have a dishwasher into which dishes are loaded, soap is added, and timer is set and that's "doing the dishes". Oh! And though our apartment has forty to sixty or more me-free hours every week I am rarely alone in it. Am I justified in feeling like I'm beating my head against the wall and wanting to kick out roomate's brother? Yes? I better be.

Making Fun of Omnivores

      Well, I had wanted to write another post making fun of vegetarians but I thought that since I had already bashed on them once I should take the time to be fair and make fun of omnivores because everyone knows omnivores have it easy and no one makes fun of those idiots. A little objectivity never hurt anyone after all. I like to be an equal-opportunity jerk and poke fun at everyone, including myself. If you're a vegetarian you should enjoy this post. If you're an omnivore I hate to say it but you might enjoy this post just as much as the vegetarians.
      First of all we'll explain omnivores. I like to break down scientific words into Latin components for the sake of confusion when I begin to clarify and define things. Omne means all or everything. Vor comes from the verb meaning to eat or devour. Literally omnivore means to devour everything. Dirt, metal, vegetables, fruit, powdered bone slime, gasoline, meat, plastic, sexual organs, everything would be in the diet of an omnivore if it were translated literally. A quick Google search for "define: omnivore" will reveal that the general definition is much narrower and comes down to a person or animal that eats or can eat both meat and plants. The same quick Google search will reveal that, apparently the term was popularized by Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. This, as you should immediately realize, is a load of crap. Saying that Michael Pollan popularized the term "omnivore" is like saying that Stephanie Meyers popularized the term "twilight" with her Twilight Saga.
      Omnivores do not obviously live up to their clinically-defined name. You don't eat petroleum or rocks. You're not going to devour someone's cotton shirt. But if you consider the generally-accepted definition everyone is an omnivore. Vegetarians can eat meat just because they choose not to. Someone who lived on a strict diet of chicken nuggets and french fries could not be not considered an omnivore just because they never had anything else.
      Eating is as much evolution and availability as it is a choice. Our ancestors survived because of their ability to consume many different things instead of fitting into one very small niche which might have easily been wiped away. A socially-conscious person who doesn't have a lot of money, despite wanting to help out local farmers by buying their produce is trapped into continuing to go to the big boxes to get groceries because they don't have the means so that food is not available to them. People who are vegetarians (generally) have the ability to get and consume meat but choose not to for moral or physical reasons, it doesn't mean they don't have the physical capacity to digest meat (boctoe) so they are technically omnivores.
      Now let's make fun of the omnivores. If you are a human omnivore you have almost certainly at some point in your lifetime consumed: Bugs, feces, dirt, metal, plastic, petroleum, sexual organs, fish bladders and powdered bone slime. Sounds like the recipe for some kind of terrible witch's brew, doesn't it? And how have you eaten these things? Wouldn't you know if this was in your food? Shouldn't it be listed on the ingredients?
      You've probably consumed an insect either accidentally while sleeping or awake or possibly intentionally but it's basically unavoidable not to eat one on accident. If you've ever gone to the bathroom and not washed your hands before preparing your food or ever eaten food someone else prepared for you then you have eaten feces. If you've ever eaten a vegetable that was not well washed before you ate it you have probably eaten feces then as well as dirt. If you have ever eaten any kind of meat, any number of vegetables or taken a vitamin containing iron you have eaten metal. If you have ever eaten any kind of food packaged in plastic you have eaten both plastic and petroleum at the same time. If you have ever eaten food that was fertilized by a petrochemical fertilizer or eaten an animal that ate any plants that were fertilized with a petrochemical you have eaten petroleum. If you have ever eaten a clover or broccoli or any other kind of flower you have eaten sexual organs. If you have ever had a beer or wine made with "isinglass" you have had fish bladder. If you have ever eaten jello or anything else that contains gelatin then you have eaten powdered bone slime. If you have ever had anything containing High Fructose Corn Syrup you have eaten a product that comes from a wet mill and could not exist without human production.
      If you are an omnivore of any kind and you have the capacity to think about what you put in your mouth the only reason you haven't is because you thought you knew. If you're happy eating a processed food that has several ingredients on the list that you cannot comfortably sound out or you cannot say what they are or where they come from I challenge you to look up some of those words. You might think you're safe by not eating processed foods but that's not the case. What part of the word does the coffee you drink or the lettuce you eat come from? Are you comfortable with how it got into the country or how and by whom it was grown. Are you comfortable with the conditions under which the chicken you eat lived it's life? Or would you rather clear your mind and play dumb?
      Omnivores enjoy being in the majority and feeling very much that might makes right. Everyone else is doing it so it must be okay. Being in the majority is not a good argument for anything. If the majority of a town is christian but a devout Muslim moves to town it does not give their neighbors any right to suggest they should go to a christian church just because everyone else in town does it. If you're going to eat meat, and fruit and mystery ingredients in your crackers that is fine with me as long as you have a good reason to do this other than the fact that this is what you have always done.
      Omnivores also tend to be food addicts. If you choose to willfully ignore where your food comes from or what it contains because you cannot give up a certain type of food then you would be considered a food addict. There's nothing wrong with being a vegetarian but the reasons you do it for are important. Similarly there is nothing wrong with being an omnivore if you have good reason to do so.