animal. Well, I would never give a human the fine distinction of being called an animal, because an animal may kill to live but an animal never lives to kill. Humans have to earn the right to be called animals again.
15
AN APOLOGY
I apologize because I want this book to be fun and not preachy, and I argued with my editor ’cause I wanted to leave some of the more incendiary, direct-address, polemical stuff in. My editor says, “You do realize you are insulting your entire audience, i.e., the human race? Not what I’d call a winning strategy. Cows don’t buy books.”
And I say, “I know, but sometimes you just gotta speak your mind.”
And my editor argues, “But they’ve heard it all before, this is not the original part of your story.”
So I say, “I don’t care if they have to hear it a thousand times more, maybe it’s like banging their heads against a wall, maybe this is me banging their heads against a wall and one day the wall will break or their heads will break and they will get it.” And my editor says, “They get it, they just don’t care.”
“Then they just get it with their minds, intellectually, because if they got it with their hearts and souls, they would change, they would change and rejoin the animal kingdom and once again be proud to be called animals. Until that day, I will keep banging their tiny heads against a wall. You can’t just wear the food chain around your neck like a bauble or necklace. You’re part of it and if you keep treating it with disdain, that chain will strangle you. Do you know how much I am leaving out in the service of being ‘entertaining’? Do you know that the alfalfa they like to feed us (and I am a freak for the ’falfa—guilty) takes so much water to grow that it is leading to water shortages? An unnatural chain is being forged. Do you know that the rampant use of antibiotics on livestock—which cuts down on bacterial diseases that would decimate pigs, chickens, and cows forced into unimaginably cramped living conditions, thereby making that obscene overcrowding possible—is also enabling diseases to mutate and adapt resistance to these selfsame antibiotics? That much of these antibiotics enter the soil and water table through our poop, and we are seeing an appearance of Frankensteinian superbugs and a return of diseases that had been made practically extinct by the medical advances of the previous century? Everything is connected. Everything. That breeze you just felt is a butterfly fluttering his wings in Thailand. Do you want me to go on? I have a list here as long as a giraffe’s neck.”
“Oh God, no, my eyes are glazing over.” My editor yawns. “You’re banging my head against the wall right now. Nobody wants to read that crap. People like to be made to feel a lighter shade of guilty, not terrified and shamed. But go ahead, keep it in, shoot yourself in the foot.”
So I say, “I can’t shoot myself in the foot.” And she asks, “Why not?” And I say, “No hands!”
And we laugh.
And she says, “A spoonful of sugar helps the globe-warming, drought-inducing, superresistant-bacteria-creating medicine go down. Don’t forget the spoonful of sugar, sugar. We can also recommend to parents that reading this particular chapter to their children guarantees they will fall asleep immediately.”
I apologize, but I was an angry young cow at that point in my life, and fully taken with making stands against the Man. I refused to be called Elsie anymore ’cause that was what humans liked to call all cows, and I told all the other animals to call me “Elsie Q” because I didn’t know my real name, the Q standing for question mark. Clever, right? And I even had my own ready-made theme song by substituting Elsie Q for Suzy Q. I like the way you walk, I like the way you moo, Elsie Q.
And I guess the force of this revelation about my mom was too much for me and I passed out. Again. ’Cause when I woke up, Jerry the pig was eating my
15
AN APOLOGY
I apologize because I want this book to be fun and not preachy, and I argued with my editor ’cause I wanted to leave some of the more incendiary, direct-address, polemical stuff in. My editor says, “You do realize you are insulting your entire audience, i.e., the human race? Not what I’d call a winning strategy. Cows don’t buy books.”
And I say, “I know, but sometimes you just gotta speak your mind.”
And my editor argues, “But they’ve heard it all before, this is not the original part of your story.”
So I say, “I don’t care if they have to hear it a thousand times more, maybe it’s like banging their heads against a wall, maybe this is me banging their heads against a wall and one day the wall will break or their heads will break and they will get it.” And my editor says, “They get it, they just don’t care.”
“Then they just get it with their minds, intellectually, because if they got it with their hearts and souls, they would change, they would change and rejoin the animal kingdom and once again be proud to be called animals. Until that day, I will keep banging their tiny heads against a wall. You can’t just wear the food chain around your neck like a bauble or necklace. You’re part of it and if you keep treating it with disdain, that chain will strangle you. Do you know how much I am leaving out in the service of being ‘entertaining’? Do you know that the alfalfa they like to feed us (and I am a freak for the ’falfa—guilty) takes so much water to grow that it is leading to water shortages? An unnatural chain is being forged. Do you know that the rampant use of antibiotics on livestock—which cuts down on bacterial diseases that would decimate pigs, chickens, and cows forced into unimaginably cramped living conditions, thereby making that obscene overcrowding possible—is also enabling diseases to mutate and adapt resistance to these selfsame antibiotics? That much of these antibiotics enter the soil and water table through our poop, and we are seeing an appearance of Frankensteinian superbugs and a return of diseases that had been made practically extinct by the medical advances of the previous century? Everything is connected. Everything. That breeze you just felt is a butterfly fluttering his wings in Thailand. Do you want me to go on? I have a list here as long as a giraffe’s neck.”
“Oh God, no, my eyes are glazing over.” My editor yawns. “You’re banging my head against the wall right now. Nobody wants to read that crap. People like to be made to feel a lighter shade of guilty, not terrified and shamed. But go ahead, keep it in, shoot yourself in the foot.”
So I say, “I can’t shoot myself in the foot.” And she asks, “Why not?” And I say, “No hands!”
And we laugh.
And she says, “A spoonful of sugar helps the globe-warming, drought-inducing, superresistant-bacteria-creating medicine go down. Don’t forget the spoonful of sugar, sugar. We can also recommend to parents that reading this particular chapter to their children guarantees they will fall asleep immediately.”
I apologize, but I was an angry young cow at that point in my life, and fully taken with making stands against the Man. I refused to be called Elsie anymore ’cause that was what humans liked to call all cows, and I told all the other animals to call me “Elsie Q” because I didn’t know my real name, the Q standing for question mark. Clever, right? And I even had my own ready-made theme song by substituting Elsie Q for Suzy Q. I like the way you walk, I like the way you moo, Elsie Q.
And I guess the force of this revelation about my mom was too much for me and I passed out. Again. ’Cause when I woke up, Jerry the pig was eating my
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