Pecans, Vegans, Runners and Other Nuts

As I write this my bags are packed. I’ll need to move and change my name as I expect a visit from the Animals Liberation Army.

While they may not advocate the eating or using of any animals products, they have no such reservations about shooting a meat-chomping redneck.             

I ran five miles a day for more than five years, all the while smoking three packs a day. It really toasted the other runners' shorts. One day while running I realized no one was chasing me. I decided I would never run again, unless someone was.

Later when overseas and involved in martial arts, someone convinced me that Buddha, Mohammad, Bruce Lee and Jesus were not only pals but cousins or brothers. It was during that time I became a vegetarian. I spent a year abstaining from meat but noticed the other vegetarians I encountered were playing with less than a full basket of mixed nuts. It only took one cheeseburger to cure myself of that foolishness.

If vegetarians are mixed nuts then vegans are a nut roll. A vegan is simply a vegetarian with an attitude, a gun and a little religious fanaticism mixed in. They walk around carrying M16s wearing those robes made famous by Moammar Gadhafi and Yasser Arafat. They carry signs saying “Kill the Killers” while yelling, “Death to all those who kill!”

If I ever step into the voting booth and see the choices Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent and Vegan on the ticket I’ll know the end is near. If a vegan becomes president I’m thinking Cuba might become much more attractive. Talk about getting wrapped up in a bunch of wars. The animals of the planet would be safe, but it would be open season on the 97 percent of us who are not vegans. If all living things have a soul, that means plants have them, too. No one can survive on rocks and dirt, so if the vegans really believe their own words they will become extinct quickly. Good lord, if no one or nothing can eat anything else, the world will end within a week, making the whole earth experiment pointless.

I know we are all different; it’s what our country is about. I’ll try not to shove a pizza in your mouth, but you best not try to rip one from mine — you might lose a finger. Our country has room for all manner of foolishness and it’s proven every day.           

Then you got the workout wackos. Try drinking a ton of protein shakes, taking a fist full of vitamins, working out for several hours a day, running for several miles a day, eating expensive, organic foods and drinking those eight full glasses of water they recommend. It makes me tired thinking about it and it makes me need to pee. Add to this that soy milk makes you sterile and I’m simply not getting wrapped up in it. How about steroids? Let’s take shots — do what? Not me, why would I want to use a drug that not only doesn’t create euphoria, but may cause you to be so irritable that you kill someone while suffering from roid rage?            All of us will die of something, some day. I can image sharing my final hospital room with people like these. I’ll be relaxed, probably still sneaking out to smoke. The runners will be paranoid, wondering who might be catching them since they can no longer run and worrying about the seven ounces they’ve gained in the last week, which raised their total weight to that of an anorexic feather. Visions of BBQ riblets and McRib sandwiches, which may or may not contain meat, will be dancing through the vegetarian’s dreams. The vegans will be plotting to kill us all using weapons containing no animal products, while suffering from cheeseburger envy. Secretly they will be cursing themselves for never eating meat and once they give up on the idea, they will get really upset upon realizing the only cheeseburger available to them will come from the hospital kitchen and will contain everything but taste.           

We’ll all die, but I’ll do it eating the Big Mac snuck into the hospital by my overweight grandson. As the vegetarian, the vegan and the runner who is contemplating a new diet so he can die at his optimum weight look on, I’ll chomp on a fat, juicy cheeseburger. I’ll die with a greasy smile on my face rather than the look of shock that will be on theirs. Dying from nothing will be the toughest thing they’ve had to face in life. The only people who will die with a carrot in their mouths will be Bugs Bunny and vegans. What do pecans, pistachios, vegans, runners, roid riders Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have in common? They’re all nuts.