let it be

"in the united states, the meat industry creates more carbon emissions than the automobile industry." - science 

 not ever christmas tree gets sold.

"stop making a big deal out of the little things"

I am at work, and am straddling that line between doing okay and wanting to throw a plate of roasted beets at someone which is always my emotional state after a few hours of waiting tables.  It is a particularly taxing evening, as there are two large parties, each of twenty or so people, sitting in my section.  They have both been at the restaurant for the past two hours “for drinks and apps,” which is hell. 

The drunker the people in the two large parties get, the less they care how full their water glasses are, so I sneak away to check on another table of two who has just sat down in my section.  It is a blonde woman who looks about my mother’s age, and man who looks a decade or so older than her.  Their relationship isn’t easily surmizable, which puts me on edge. 

The woman asks to taste a few different kinds of red wine.  I take this as a personal insult—as if my description of them each as either “full-bodied”, “medium-bodied”, or “not full-bodied” was not specific enough for her to make a choice.  I bring her the samples, she chooses the cabernet, and when I return with a glass I see that her and the older gentleman are barely talking because he almost comatose.  I decide that she must be either his caretaker or his trophy wife.   The diagnosis relaxes me as I start to take their food order.

“So tell me.  The salmon that you have—is it farm-raised or wild?”

I want to tell her that our rivers and oceans are being over-fished, and aquacultures are raping the environment, so if she “cares” enough about anything to be concerned about the way that the animal she is about to eat has landed on her plate, she would be better off not eating it all.

Instead, I tell her it is farm-raised. She seems disappointed.

“Oh okay.  Do you know if it was farm-raised in South America, or in ocean pens?”

I tell her I have no idea.  She asks me to ask the chef.

“He’s not going to lie to you, right?”

I tell her that the main chef is not working, and the man in charge that evening barely speaks any English.  He is going to look at me like I am crazy when I go interrupt his work to ask him this question.  So no, he is not going to lie to me.  And you are not going to get any answer by me running this errand for you, but I will go do it if it will make you feel better.

As I’m walking to the kitchen, I pass by my manager.  I ask him if our farm-raised salmon is farm-raised in South America or in ocean pens.  He looks at me like I’m crazy, which I expected.

“It’s definitely not farm-raised in South America.  Alaska? Maybe Alaska.  Definitely not South America.  I have no idea.”

I know he has no idea.  I know that his guess of “Alaska” was only out of association.  I know despite the fact that he used the word “definitely”, it may be farm-raised in South America.  No one in this restaurant has ever cared about this before.  Armed with nothing, I return to the table of two to share what I have learned.

She laughs when I tell her that we think the salmon is from Alaska, and I laugh with her because I have found that laughing at the same time as someone is a good way to get them to like you.  She finishes laughing.

“There are no salmon farms in Alaska.”

I tell her that Alaska is the largest state in the country, and that maybe there are some salmon farms there that she doesn’t know about.  She doesn’t hear me and begins to order.

“He will have the bratwurst.  I will have the grilled chicken with asparagus.   We’ll share the crab cakes to start.  And an order of grilled salmon to-go—for my dog.”

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i love luna bars. i hope i don't turn into the moon!