I was a vegetarian for exactly 20 years starting January 1, 1992 — a New Year’s resolution. Although I’d like to claim an ethical awakening, it was really that my girlfriend was a vegetarian so I became one too. I’d expected to fight cravings for bacon or burgers but it was much easier than that, like flipping a switch. I started learning meatless recipes, and started getting teased — a grown man, in my 20s — by friends, family, strangers. In a small-town sports bar I was nearly beaten up for ordering an eggplant parmesan sandwich. The girlfriend and I didn’t last but the diet stayed with me. I am a person who doesn’t eat meat, I told myself. I’m a person who has stumbled onto an easy sidestep around toxic masculinity. I’m a person, I muttered under my breath, with better things to do than argue with you over a damn sandwich. [150 words]
Nineteen and a half years later I was getting divorced. I started craving seafood but stuck with self-denial another half-year because 20 years sounds better in stories like this one. So the switch was flipped back on January 1, 2012 and a few weeks later I finally tried sashimi. I was planning a trip to Japan and guessed that vegetarian food would be hard to come by for a solo illiterate foreigner who didn’t want to bother anyone. As an omnivore it was easier to accept hospitality, such as from the friend of a friend in Kyoto who graciously played interpreter and guide for a few days in late November, and at her local okonomiyaki hangout whispered to the cook who surprised me with a bespoke Thanksgiving feast of garlic chicken, fried potatoes, and a tiny pumpkin pastry in a box with a ribbon. I still give thanks for that. [300]
One day at work the cute young barista in the downstairs cafe told me she was quitting her job. My singlehood still felt new and flirting was scarce, so I asked her for a date. We met for lunch at a French bistro nearby. I’ve never been here before, she said. What’s good on the menu? Well, I replied, I was a vegetarian until recently, but my friends like the mussels. Oh, she asked, making polite conversation, when did you become a vegetarian? I answered without thinking, and then — in the middle of the crowded restaurant — she screamed, loudly, turning heads. She’d thought I was 35, an acceptable age between young and middle; the extra decade brought on a silent and simultaneous crisis of confidence for us both. Polite conversation gradually resumed but with diminished energy, and a short while later a discreet curtain was drawn on this unfortunate scene. [450]
by Erik Schwab
Table Tales - 150 word stories 