Vegetarian unawarian

By Nick Elmer
Collegian Editor
October 11, 2006

For whatever reason, my morals have finally caught up with me and I have decided to become a vegetarian.

However, I felt a test was first in order. Diving head first into something as intimidating as “no more cocktail wieners” without a safety net of some sort does not sound like the greatest of ideas. So I would give myself a trial period: no meat during the month of September. This way, if being vegetarian was not feasible, it would not feel like that much of a failure.

Also, it would provide a great device for screwing with my roommate’s head.

After I alerted everyone else in my life that I was going to be a vegetarian for the month of September, I told my roommate, “Joseph T. Pelone, there’s a mystery going on. You have until the end of the month to figure it out! If you don’t, I’m going to write an article about how stupid you are for the Collegian.”

The chessboard was set. Now it was all up to our opposing wits.

It is funny how two people can live together but not really notice big changes in one another’s behavior. Prior to September, I had a cheeseburger for every meal at Treetops. Yet, when my dinners started consisting of salads, plain cheese pizza and plates full of hummus (which Treetops does have), Joe did not raise an eyebrow. As I spooned the bean dip into my mouth he would only look mildly interested and remark, “You sure do like hummus.”

Perhaps I was not being fair to him. After all, hummus is delicious. So me devouring it would hardly raise any alarms. Yet, what about my numerous clues delivered to Joe?

One time I mentioned out loud, “I really need some protein,” to which he snarled and replied, “You eat meat.” On another occasion, I got two burritos, neither filled with my usual steak, or any meat at all for that matter. The familiar snarl followed by, “What’re you, a hippie?” Surely, Joe had an inkling what was going on when I looked him dead in the eyes one meal and started yelling “I like vegetables!” over and over. A skeptical and slightly worried look was all he had to offer me.

None of my clues seemed to help. I spent a whole month with the guy and he never did notice I had made such a large change in my life.

This experiment is a testament to how little we really bother to check up on each other. College is an extremely social experience for most people, but social does not always mean personable.

It is easy to focus more on the meeting and greeting, the nights out and the dinner table chatter with your fellow students. Yet, it is also important for us to stretch our empathic muscles and learn to delve into something else besides the social aspect of our relationships. These are our friends after all. Fair weather or not, it is good to know what is going on behind that face telling you what crazy thing happened last night.

We are all guilty of overlooking this sometimes. Maybe it is not conscious but we all sometimes ignore or dismiss the signals we receive from our friends. “They’re just having a bad night,” “He just needs to sleep it off” or “Wow, she’s got a serious attitude tonight” are some versatile examples of dismissals of what could be something wrong.

So this is a call to look out for one another. Pay just a little bit more attention to others and keep each other safe and happy.

As for Joe, he can go suck on a turkey leg for all I care.

elmern1@lasalle.edu