V03 of Mice and Bread
Every Monday morning I look forward to stopping at BreadSmith, our local bakery, on my way to work. Walking into the aroma of fresh baked bread and hearing the laughter and chatter of the employees has always been a welcomed joy for me. Today, however proved to be a rather negative experience. All of the employees know that I am vegan so they offer me samples of vegan breads as well as muffins or scones. A woman whom I like quite a bit offered me a new type of bread that had chips in it stating how delicious it was. Another employee jumped into the conversation telling me that they weren't non-dairy chips so I would most likely not want to sample the bread. I thanked her and then she asked me specifically what the difference was between a vegetarian and a vegan. As I proceeded to explain the difference to her the manager walked out onto the floor and spoke loudly as she was exiting "Are we talking about vegetarianism again"? Then she said "Well I'm a proud carnivore". I had so many thoughts run through my mind I didn't know how to respond so I said "just what part of the suffering of animals makes you most proud"? Her response "All of it"! She then left the store as a coward would normally do. I wanted to tell her that she should go vegan for 30 days to try to lose the extra 100 pounds she carries around and if she didn't feel better we would gladly refund her misery, but she was gone and I was left feeling sick at the encounter.