I'll skip the details of how it happened, except to say that this answers the question everyone's been asking me lately (i.e., "Why'd you break up with Rachel?"), but my annual "Thanksgiving for folks who can't or don't want to be with their families" dinner was invaded by vegetarians. Normally, I don't have a problem with other peoples' affectations, or at least it's completely tacit: they think I'm a brute, I think they're ponces, so we each do our own separate things and make snide remarks about each other afterward.

... the apotheosis of my relationship with humanity.

But it's completely egregious to show up at a dinner party, of all things, and announce your silly little lifestyle choice, then behave like a complete ass when you're not instantly accommodated. While the rest of us sat down to dinner, the vegetarians opted to stay in the living room polish off the zakuski, and engage in a loud conversation about anal electrocution and the horrors of veal. If anyone had seemed offended by Rachel's guests, I'd probably have put a stop to it, but the rest of them were my guests, who probably wouldn't have put down their forks even if a steer were slaughtered in the kitchen and butchered on the sideboard between courses.

That's why I call them my "friends"

After dinner, everyone regroups in the living room, and is sympathetically over-emphatic about how much they've enjoyed the evening. Things really begin to light up when someone asks about the white bean paté with sun-dried tomatoes that the vegetarian pair had completely devoured. "Those weren't tomatoes. It was bacon." The recipe, which I related with gusto, uses a full pound of it — the grease is used to flavor the dip, and the bacon is only partially cooked so it stays moist and chewy.

... and it gets better.

The various bowls and plates the vegetarians had emptied contained, among other things, onions sautéed in rendered duck fat, vegetables soaked in vinaigrette that was seasoned with pulverized anchovies, a tomato compote containing beef stock and, best of all, a lumpy soup made from goose blood and bone marrow. The vegetarians went green — and one of them puked a little bit, just enough to puff his cheeks, which he promptly swallowed, probably hoping that nobody would notice. But everyone did. When Peter pointed out that he'd swallowed meat twice, he went off like a geyser.

People cheered.

I was kept kind of busy with a couple of bath towels and a whole lot of lemon-scented Lysol, so I didn't notice when they left — but I'm pretty sure it was a hasty exit. Rachel went with them, and didn't come back until two days later to pick up her things. Monday at the office, everyone who'd attended tells me it was the best Thanksgiving they ever had.

... go figger.