ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

Q. Why is it that some vegetarians eat fish? Fish is meat, fish is alive, what’s the difference?

United States

A. My basic theory depends on how the individual person fits into my three tiered vegeterian classification system.

(1) The Animals Have Rights Too vegetarian. These vegetarians feel that animals are special, honest, peaceful, and deserve more rights than humans. This is the type of person who owns a hatchback car with a bumper sticker assuring other motorists that they do not eat anything “with a face”. They do not respond well to being told that an animal eating another animal is much less kind to its victim than a person eating an animal. These vegetarians are the least likely of all three to eat fish, but if they do it is because (a) they don’t consider fish real animals because they are not cute or expressive-looking enough or (b) they are not very serious about it and they mostly were just trying to piss off their parents, which probably gets them spit on by the really hardcore vegans, who wear jackboots, never shave anywhere, and only eat legumes.

(2) The I Don’t Like Meat vegetarian. This is the person who has simply never enjoyed eating most foods with concentrated amounts of protein. They may or may not embrace the attitudes of (1), but at any rate their eating habits are not philosophically meaningful because they would have done this anyway and it’s not really much of a statement for them. These people may dislike red meat and poultry but enjoy fish, although that is statistically unlikely since they are picky eaters and would probably reject most seafood as being gross. They mostly subsist on potatoes, American cheese, and cinnamon rolls.

(3) The Doctor’s Orders vegetarian. This person does not give a shit about the vegetarian philosophy, which is mostly why they reached a point at which their physician has ordered them not to eat red meat because it’s the only thing that will keep their heart from exploding. They are allowed one egg a week, which they eat hardboiled and sliced up on dry toast on Saturday morning with the paper. They are likely to turn to fish as an alternative to red meat, and may also include poultry and certain cuts of pork as well.  They cry into their pillows at night, quietly so they don’t wake their wives.