Wrote this a while ago... I just love the word pumpkin.
I know we’ve only been together for a few months now, but I feel as if you’re the only person I can tell this to. It’s not like you’ll entirely understand, but you’re really the only person that I trust not to tell anyone else. I went to Wegmans yesterday and ate a turkey sub. It was literally calling to me; I just had to indulge. It’s been thirteen years since I last had meat, and I’m not quite sure how to proceed from here. Do I continue to be a vegetarian or should I slowly start eating meat? Sorry if this letter is a bit of a rant; I need to tell you about the full “episode” because I want to get this off of my chest.
Let me just give you a bit of back-story that you might not already know. I love Thanksgiving; I love my family and I love the food. There’s nothing better than going downstairs on Thanksgiving morning and being encapsulated by tantalizing aromas. Yesterday was no different, and as I woke up, I was immediately transported into a kingdom of cranberry, stuffing and gravy. I lumbered downstairs and saw my mother hard at work. She was putting the finishing touches on all of the food that she had been delicately preparing throughout the week.
As my mother swirled around the kitchen, my groggy-morning vision was fading; I was beginning to see the sea of crimson, burgundy, ginger, auburn, plum and gold. The room was brimming with fragrant spices and I could almost see the smells silently crawl into every corner. Colors and scents were twisting together and I was unable to distinguish individual platters.
“Taste this, honey. I want to know if it’s too sweet,” my mother asked.
“Absolutely.”
I took a fragile nibble of the gluten-free pumpkin dumpling, and I simply tasted Thanksgiving. The dumpling was soft and supple; it melted and liquefied into a tangy pumpkin serum in my mouth. It had been pulled directly from the inside of a plump pumpkin and enveloped in a coating of picturesque autumn.
The dumplings looked thin next to the other dishes. They were wounded soldiers, barely able to stand on their own. However, they had an internal power and conquered the feaster with their inner exquisiteness.
I scanned the platters and saw the emblematic Rollins family buffet: grapefruit and avocado salad, wild mushroom fricassee, apple coleslaw, kale with brussel sprouts, celery root and chestnut soup and gluten-free apple cornbread. You see, we’re not the typical American family when it comes to Thanksgiving. We’re all vegetarians. I know you’re aware of the fact that I’m a vegetarian, but I never mentioned that everyone in my family is one too. My mom once threatened not to go to class in college because her professor had McDonalds sitting on the desk. She said that she couldn’t respect anyone that disrespected other living creatures.
I know it sounds a bit crazy, but if they knew you were a meat-eater, they wouldn’t allow you in the house. That’s why I’ve never invited you over; we don’t actually have a cat Muffy that would set off your allergies.
We’re kind of a cult like that.
Ever since I can remember we were forbidden from deviating from the norm of eating tiny plants and tiny tofu. My mother always said, “how could you possibly eat anything with eyes!” and personally, I was brainwashed to agree with her. My mother constantly cracked her charred vegetarian whip and forced us to obey her vegetarian commands. When I was a little girl, all I wanted to do was go to McDonalds and get a burger or go to Friendly’s and get chicken fingers. I hated my mother when I was little because she pretty much controlled everything that went into my mouth.
She forced me to watch documentaries about animal cruelty as a child; she convinced me that eating anything with a tail or droopy eyes was like eating a human. The idea of tormenting a living creature just to animate my senses became inconceivable. What put me above a cow or a chicken? Even fish were beautiful; they sparkled and shined as they spun through the vast seas. She brainwashed me in a sense to believe that there was no justification for killing animals, and it was my responsibility to protect all other living creatures on this earth. And, every Thanksgiving, I was reminded that I still had my delicious little vegetarian gluten-free pumpkin dumplings.
Thanksgiving this year was fairly standard. My Auntie Millie, Auntie Lily, Auntie Mildred, Auntie Gertie, and Auntie Lapis came with their husbands and children, and we all feasted together in the dining room. It was a room of a hundred pathetic peacocks; they displayed their newly purchased opulent feathers from Neiman Marcus in hopes of stealing the spotlight. They used horrific, loud voices in order to be heard. They pried into my business, and poked into every aspect of my life. What is your major now? Biology isn’t practical for a girl. Your legs look a bit chubby. Maybe Cornell isn’t the place for you. Why are you wearing red? Red isn’t your color. What do you want to do after college? And always the inevitable who are you dating? I know someone that I could set you up with… They were screaming, screaming, screaming, all meal long!
You should have seen my Auntie Mildred; she was absolutely absurd at the table. Auntie is from Miami and is simply glitzy. I don’t know how else to put it. She strutted in with her bedazzled clinging magenta-tie-dye t-shirt with the word “HOT” plastered to the front and velour black fold-over sweatpants. Her k-swiss were baby pink with rubies splashed all over the surface. Please let me also note that she was wearing fake retro Chanel sunglasses atop (don’t forget that it’s November) her orange fluff ball of a wig. Her skin is burnt bacon.
Auntie M. is slowly losing it, and she has absolutely no filter. She’s completely senile and is cynical towards just about anything. She doesn’t care about her appearance and does whatever she desires. If she thinks she looks HOT, she will let it be known. I like to mess with her sometimes, but it’s all in good fun. Yesterday she asked me how to get to Wonderland. I told her that in order to get to Wonderland we’d have to go to the end of the candy aisle at Wegmans. She insisted that we go after dinner since Wegmans was open 24-hours.
We all indulged in the peanut-free, tree nut-free, milk-free, egg-free, sugar-free and most importantly, gluten-free gargantuan meal before crashing on the mammoth plush hippo that I’ve always called “Sylvester the Stinky-Smelling Sofa.” I fell into a Thanksgiving trance with pumpkin dumplings dabbling in and out of my crimson fantasies.
“Maggie! Maggie Moo! Wake up! You little piece of shit, you. Maggie wake up or I’ll smack ya,” screeched Mildred. All one hundred ten pounds of her skeleton were ferociously shaking me. “Let’s go to Wonderland. I need someone to pick up my medication anyways!” She’s a horrid fucking pain in the ass.
I hated Mildred so much in that instant. It felt like the fucking Titanic was sunk at the bottom of stomach and she wanted to go to Wegmans.
“Maggie, bring your Auntie to Wegmans,” my mother faintly replied from the opposite side of the couch. She slowly propped herself up on one elbow, and looked like she had just risen from the dead. She looked like a cracked-out Martha Stewart going through Thanksgiving withdrawal at this point. “No one else wants to take her, and she needs her diabetes medication. She’s eighty-four years old and can’t drive. Please just take her.”
Ugh, my mom was so annoying. I knew she would have reprimanded me for hours if I hadn’t gone. “Fine, mother,” I replied.
I turned to Auntie’s slim outline, “Auntie, get in the car. We’re going to Wonderland.” At that point, all I wanted to do was sit on Sylvester the couch, but somehow, I dragged myself off the couch and got into the car with Auntie M. I’ll skip telling you about the car ride for another time. There are too many ridiculous quotes for this letter. My favorite: “Who is the big fat red lady that lives in the ugly green house with an unknown number of black children? A watermelon.”
After nearly getting into three accidents (Auntie Mildred is the ultimate backseat driver), we made our way into Wegmans. You know what Wegmans looks like, we went last year on our trip to Albany. I held Aunties’s hand through the aisles. “Wonderland is so soon,” she croaked. I retorted, “alllllll-most” in the same crocodile-like tone. I was babysitting an eighty-year-old crusty woman with the word HOT plastered to her saggy boobs. I was doing this for my overworked, neurotic, vegetarian mother. We whirled by the home appliance, bathroom and dog-food aisles and quickly approached the candy section. I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible and get back to my catnap on the hippo.
I saw in front of me a skyline of skittles, a metropolis of milk ways and mounds. My eyes bounded from the round reeces to the succulent snickers to the delicate dots to the juicy jolly ranchers. I was entranced by a world twisted by twizzlers, bursting with starbursts, dumbfounded by airheads. The autumn colors of Thanksgiving were zapped away in my mind with electric yellows, indigos and magentas. Mikes and Ikes danced flawlessly on their stage, while sour path and gummy bears applauded in the audience.
Auntie Mildred dipped her wilted fingers into the audience and momentarily disrupted the show.
“Auntie! You can’t eat candy! We came to Wegmans to get your diabetes medication!” I exclaimed.
Auntie calmly responded, “Thank you for bringing me to Wonderland, my sweet Maggie. This is my Wonderland. Just let me indulge.” She didn’t pay attention to my criticism.
Auntie was so ecstatic; her smile was a watermelon—with tiny colored teeth as children inside. I couldn’t forbid her from eating the candy; she was too animated. In that moment, I wondered, what was my Wonderland? I wanted to discover my paradise, my haven, my escape.
We continued through the aisle made it to the end of the candy. The deli-section appeared in front of me. I saw a plain, simple turkey sub sitting in the glass case in front of me. I was struck by its minimalism. No frills. No complex fillers. Just a plain roll with turkey and lettuce inside. I snatched it from the case and devoured it*.
I thought about my Thanksgiving. I had the dainty dumplings, and the wild mushroom fricassee. The coleslaw, celery root and chestnut soup were but a distant memory. I wanted something else. Mildred just indulged in something so forbidden, something so… So illicit. I hated my mother right then. I hated my mother for forcing me to watch those documentaries. I hated her for being a fucking vegetarian nut-job. If Auntie could eat candy, I could eat a turkey sub. It wouldn’t kill me.
I went back home and slept on the hippo.
Rob, I entered my Wonderland. I know I was contemplating switching to the “dark side” of meat eating at the beginning of the letter, but after venting to you, I think I’m ready to go to Wonderland again. I don’t want to miss out on meat just because I have a neurotic mother. I know it sounds weird that I need this “hand-holding” to eat, but this is going to be a big change in my life. I’m pulling away from my mother’s control, and for the first time, I am eating something because I want to. The turkey sub was simply fantastic; I’ve been missing something so great for such a long time. Please don’t tell my mother.
Yours truly,
