At my job as a bartender, there are a few things I really dislike. Dealing with Extremely Drunk People, Restocking the Beer (back breaking!!!) and lately, cutting up sausage for our meat plates.
I thought i might skate by this chore, simply because i am a Notorious Vegan. Notorious in that i am VEGAN Meg, I have a cooking show, and also a theme song. Lets face it, I’ve been working pretty hard towards Vegan Notoriety. Which why it surprised me last Tuesday, when my boss deemed me Sausage cutter for the day.
I did understand immediately that the sausages needed to be cut. People were ordering meat plates (ew.) and my job was to serve them.
As a side note, I really love the people I work with at this place. There is a lot of love, and I exercise gratitude at every chance I can. However, This day gratitude was hiding behind a powdery garlic sausage stick.
It was Smelly! It was Sticky! And it was the most I had dealt with meat in three years.
I asked for gloves and we didn’t have any, so i made make-shift gloves out of the cling wrap. Every time i accidentally touched the sausage i cringed, and every time i accidentally breathed through my nose i gagged.
Was I making a big deal about this? Indubitably! It was the exact feeling I had as a child when my mom forced me to eat her eggplant tomato casserole. I was stubbornly working myself into a disgust frenzy.
I still work there, and I am terrified i will have to cut sausage again. But then again, its my job! Its not like I am consuming the sausage, which is the whole reason i became vegan in the first place. To not Contribute to Abusive Actions towards animals. Once the animals get to this sausage stage, as long as I’m not consuming and giving money to the people killing, I should be fine with it. It was just hard to get into my happy place with the current sausage scenario.
It also seemed like some other meat eaters I work with would have Enjoyed the task, nibbling on dried sausage here and there…
But maybe having a vegan cut your sausage is one way to keep cost down. Torture.