Lamb – part two

My friend’s daughter started to talk about the food she’d ordered from the restaurant menu, to stir me up. I think she was meaning to make it into a joke, at this precise moment, but this sort of joke, like most jokes, is at someone else’s expense. I suppose it was aimed at me, at how foolish I am to take these things so seriously. For her it’s almost mandatory that a joke is made, to counteract my stand on Animal Rights. For her perhaps it’s important that whenever ‘animal-eating’ comes up in a conversation, it needs to be joked about. It shows people like me how unattractive and un-cool it is, to get sniffy about cuisine.
As the joke goes along it gains momentum, volley by volley. Hers is the first comment, mine comes next and it goes on until someone “wins”. “The lamb” is pitched as a joke but really it’s a challenge, a jibe, a quick in-and-out. To any long-time vegan, this sort of sniper attack is tediously familiar, but strangely, predictably, we vegans always rise to the bait. Meat eaters probably enjoy the outrage on our faces and even enjoy watching us trying to take control of our reply.
This sort of joke is a winner because meat eaters can be sure that a vegan’s sniffiness (about animals-being-eaten) will be aroused just by mentioning “the lamb”. It could be any animal of course, but we use the same word –lamb - for the animal as well as the cut of meat, so this word (this animal) is sure to trigger reactions. By admitting to eating a young sheep, a meat eater will certainly provoke outrage in a vegan.