Vegetarianism and Church Ladies

Yesterday we had a meeting at the convention at a local church (convention hall doesn't have rooms for all the various meetings we have). The church ladies were very nice and welcoming, but had a bit of a hard time dealing with the fact of my vegetarianism. Okay, we'll back up here, there are very few vegetarians among Eastern Star members as a whole -- it's a meat and potatoes demographic generally. So I don't think the church ladies expected to find the odd veggie in the mix. Here's how it went down.

Church Lady: Oh, You're vegetarian. What does that mean?
Me: I don't eat meat.
CL: There's chicken in the salad. Do you want the salad?
Me: Chicken would be meat. No thank you.
CL: So you want a plate with no salad?
Me: That would be lovely, thank you.

You haven't lived until you have lunched on two different kinds of jell-o salad (yes - I know, horse hooves -- but what can you do?) -- one, a mix of cherry jell-o with celery and onions topped with a daub of mayo and green onion, placed on a piece of iceberg lettuce, the other the requisite lime with cottage cheese and pineapple and a jaunty maraschino cherry on top. At least the strawberry shortcake for dessert was good....

It is good to be home.