Just when you think you know someone

After 11 years of marriage, Lois and I have gotten to know each other pretty well. I know that Lois likes her chocolate dark, her movies romantic, and the heat set to 72 degrees. I also know that when I get home from work, if I sneak up quietly to the room she’s in and then yell, “RAWR!” that it will scare the absolute bejeebers out of her, and I will be in trouble for anywhere from 1-3 hours.

One thing I did not know about Lois, however, something that she definitely did not disclose during our courtship and revealed only recently, was that she is a vegan. This came as quite a surprise to me. She hid it so well over the years, and I don’t know what she did with all that meat and dairy that I was sure she was eating.

Lois claims that she wasn’t a vegan before and only decided recently to try it out for a while. How does that even work? Maybe I’ll “decide” to try out having O positive blood for a while. Or maybe I'll “decide” that my astrological sign will be Virgo instead of Libra. And maybe I could just “decide” that I’m going to be a Democrat instead of a Republican. Balderdash.

Luckily Lois does not insist that the rest of us participate in the odd rituals associated with being a vegan, like the consumption of the green smoothie each morning. I don’t know what all she puts in there, but I know it includes copious amounts of spinach, a frozen banana, and a vile weed called kale. She claims that it is delicious, but she is a vegan after all, so I don’t know why I should believe anything she says.

About a year ago Lois’s sister, Chloe, had her wedding rehearsal dinner at a very nice Thai restaurant. Rather than ordering from a menu, the restaurant staff would regularly bring out various dishes and we would help ourselves. Some of Chloe’s friends from New York had flown in for the occasion, many of whom are vegetarians. They were all sequestered to a specific table so the staff could make sure to get the appropriate dishes to them. I remember how relieved I was not to be sharing the table with them. Not just because I’d have to eat their food, but because vegetarians are just weird, man. What do you even talk about with a vegetarian? And what if they tried to convert me? Would they be offended at how prominent my canine teeth are?

Without being overbearing, Lois has undoubtedly hoped that her new “healthy” lifestyle would rub off on me. On the contrary, however, for each healthy change Lois makes, I find myself needing to keep things balanced. When she ate only a salad for dinner the other night, I was compelled to make a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich to go along with my meatball sub. When she checked out Vegan Planet: 400 irresistible recipes with fantastic flavors from home and around the world from the library, I checked out Man Eats Man: the story of cannibalism. And for every batch of vegan cupcakes Lois makes, I shoot one of the neighborhood cats. Granted, I was going to do that last one anyway, so…

I'm not really sure how long Lois is going to keep this up.  I've been trying to entice her back to carnivorism, but subtlety isn't really my strong point.  If anything, the gusto with which I devoured that brace of pheasants the other night seems to have made her retreat even farther into her devotion to veganism.  In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have butchered them in the kitchen while Lois was hosting her book club in the next room.  And perhaps I should have taken more care to avoid getting blood on her Flirty apron.  On the plus side, as long as she remains vegan, that means more dark chocolate for me.