Penguins

Penguins

I am in my thirties at a nice brunch restaurant.

I am looking at a menu and my extended family is here. All four of us plus my father and Della as part of their typical monthly visit from San Francisco.

It’s a brunch place and a little “organic.” The menu is filled with complex and difficult flavors and the kids are young. After some struggle, we find something they’ll both want to eat and we’re waiting.

This would normally be a happy time, but I’m angry about a joke told around the table. This is rare because humor is so critical. The “joke,” if you can call it that and I’ll let you judge, is that Zoe doesn’t eat meat and doesn’t like most vegetables. She is a “vegetarian who doesn’t like vegetables.” This is both true and maybe mildly funny?

When Zoe was small, before she could even create full sentences, she’d expressed concern about the moral implications of eating something else alive. It was during a reading of One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish — there’s no eating in that book that I remember, but the fishes coming and going may have started her thinking. “Eat fish?” as her eyes start to water. She cocks her head and upturns a palm, asking a question. “Fishie gone.” She knows the answer without us telling her and starts to cry. She’s crying “no eat, no eat” and we hold her and tell her she never has to eat meat again. We will help her.

It takes her years to commit to this belief, but she does. No more meat even if half of what you want to eat is meat.

So you could imagine that when, the first time this happened, I had a small quiet internal monologue that, I don’t know, went like this:

ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY? TEASING A CHILD ABOUT A DEEPLY HELD, DEEPLY MORAL DECISION? WHAT THE FUCK

Something calm like that I’m sure, but I never explode each time I hear it for the years she keeps getting that from them. I’ve tried some deflection of this with my parents. Pivot to something like “don’t get anything off the vegetarian menu. They’re tough and stringy here.” This joke is safe as virtual vegetarians lack aspirations.

I’m trying to find something interesting in the news on my phone so we can talk about anything else, I’m sure. I see that penguins have been stolen from the zoo. Kids like animal stories.

Zoe’s natural question: “Why would anyone steal penguins?”

I can’t help myself: “Well Z, not everyone can afford a nice brunch like this. People are hungry.”

Zoe’s eyes turn into half-dollars: “THEY’RE GOING TO EAT THE PENGUINS.” She’s pretty devastated by the news as expected.

My father’s eyes pop up and he stares at me unbelieving at what I just said. I turn quickly to Z and apologize. Say: “I’m joking. No one would ever eat a penguin. They don’t taste good and they just want some money. It’ll be fine.”

A dog’s nose is rubbed or not, but we continue with a nice visit.