What is a vegan?

The thought flashed through my mind this past week
as I sat in a dentist's chair, mouth agape, as the
Marathon Man in white made jokes while pounding and
scraping away at my anvil-like numbed upper jaw.
More on that in a moment.

The honor of naming a newly discovered comet or asteroid
or heavenly body traditionally belongs to that scientist
whose eye is trained upon the night sky while normal men
and women cuddle up with earthly heavenly bodies. In any
event, humankind has been blessed with the discovery of a
planet by astrophysicist Mike Brown, a professor of astronomy
at the California Institute of Technology. Brown's first
choice for the yet-to-be-named planet is Xena, after the
Lucy Lawless role of the TV show Warrior Princess.

There was no real genius involved in this discovery. I await
the brilliant man or woman who creates that yet to be recited
pneumonic replacing "My very educated mother just served us
nine pickles."

In any event, my vote for the newly found orbiting ice cube
would be VEGA. That way, we Vegans would be able to rationalize
our strange behaviors by claiming to be from the planet Vega.

So...back to the dentist.

I had lost a battle with an impossible-to-open pistachio
nut. Thinking that my tooth possessed the strength of my
youth, I bit down and immediately knew that the cracking
sound and salty taste in my mouth was neither shell nor
nut. The tooth had broken down to the gum line, leaving
behind a remnant that was buried beneath the gum.

Which brings me to the entire point of this wandering
column, a vegan's dilemma.

An entire tooth-to-be-pulled provides leverage for
gentle dental extractions. My surgery required the old
put-your-feet-on-the-patient's-chest-and-hack method.
Shortly before my dentist was through with his second
package of gauze, and shortly after I had refused a
transfusion for body fluids lost, my man of medicine
informed me that I would need one stitch to close the
wound.

It was then that I held up my hand to interrupt
whatever medical talk and flirting was passing between
my doctor and his shapely assistant. (I have never, ever
seen an unattractive dental assistant and always wonder
who does the hiring...) I said to them both, "I'm a vegan.
What are you going to use to sew up the wound?" Blood
dripped out of my mouth down my chin as I watched the
dentist thread a needle through the periphery of my vision.
"I'm using silk. The only other alternative is cat-gut."
I thought of the poor abused silkworms housed in a
Pakistani worm house (awaiting the visit of a PETA
euthanasia specialist, perhaps) as I responded, no longer
the vegan I once was, having run out of viable choices,
"Do the deed."

So he did. I have put aside my pain and suffering...and
guilt, and have selected that option to live and fight
another day.

Robert Cohen
Visit http://www.notmilk.com
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