Teenage Dirtbag

I used to be a Vegetarian.

I blame the chooks. One of the compulsory subjects at Bogan-villea High during my teenage years was Agriculture. We called it ‘Ag’. The Ag students were all given their own plot out the back of the school, a handful of seeds and told we could keep whatever we grew. I, of course, made sure that MY vegies were organic, watered daily, neatly lined up and protected by a scarecrow. There was one strange boy who simply dug all the dirt out of his plot and gave it away. Some of the farm kids grew wheat or hay. Anyway, our Ag class also learned about livestock. Then came 'the excursion.'

Our class, being the gifted Aggies who were considered to have a good chance of scoring a job at the local abbatoir or tanning works, got to travel to the big smoke, Tamworth, to see real chooks being ‘processed’. Oh gosh, how excitement. No one cared much for the chook part of the itinerary written on the permission note. WE had a day off school and were going to McDONALDS for LUNCH!!!

The bloody teachers actually did make us go to the Poultry Works in order to earn our Maccas. Ho hum. There’s some chooks. All lined up. Bwaahk. Bwaahk. Here’s the room where we put them into a neck brace. Here’s the room where the machine snaps their necks ….

WHAT? The machine… WHAT??!!!

Yes. The Ag excursion had an unexpected outcome. I realised that animals had to be killed in order to produce meat. It made the trip to Maccas afterwards a little awkward too. For lunch, only the kids from farms and those raised by wolves  had a McChicken or a McNugget (except the kid who didn’t realise what nuggets are made from). And…me being the extremist and all... I did the unthinkable. I wasn't much of a dirtbag baby, but I did become a teenage vegetarian.

I announced it to my family that evening:

Me: Well, I’m now a vegetarian.

Teenage Brother: Oh for Christ sake, what’s that? Are you allergic to vegies?

Me: No, I’m not eating chickens.

Mother: Well, that would be a chookatarian.

Me: Fine then. I won’t eat pigs either. Or cows. (shit, that means I can’t have meat pies…) Yes, I’M a teenage vegetarian.

Brother: You’re a teenage sook-a-tarian.

Me (avoiding wafting smell of roasted lamb): Animals have feelings too you know.

Brother: Yeah, this steak feels really good in my STOMACH.

It’s not easy being a teenage vegetarian in a small Bogan country town.

I didn’t broadcast it for fear of retribution. But it did mean a few changes. No leather jackets or handbags. No kangaroo-leather reinforcements on my sheepskin ugg boots. My mother tried to somehow compensate for my lack of meat by serving me bowls of McCains peas. At barbecues I’d be the one who ‘just had salad’. Yes, we didn’t quite know about how to be a good vegetarian back then. You could be Christian. You could belong to a worker’s union. You could even be an immigrant (just). But a vegetarian???? No one knew what do with those. I did last several years against the odds until the urge for fish fingers and party pies just took over. But I still can’t watch an animal be killed. And I don’t eat that much meat generally. It’s just so… fleshy.

SO, imagine my joy when recently I entered my very first meat raffle at the club.

I’ve not been a real club go-er funnily enough. I think it harps back to my pub experiences. A meat raffle was a crass term used by Bogan blokes for the auction process to decide which young inebriated Boganette to take home. I was busy studying to win an all-expensed paid trip to University and financial freedom, so I rarely attended the meat raffles. And besides, word had got around the Bogan Boys that I was a vegetarian. Best steer clear of that one. No tellin' what she might do.

Recently, a farewell dinner for a friend of mine, Fitzy Finance, was held at ‘the club’, organised by Clubbin’ Kimmy.

Me: What time should I get there Kim?

C.K: Six thirty. In time for the meat raffle.

Me: Right. Sounds serious. Best I be on time then.

I scabbed a lift with Smurfette of the Outlets (aka the designated driver). We squealed the Mazda into the parking lot at 6:27, clomped inside (in our bestest skinny jeans and leopard print heels) JUST in time to purchase a wad of meat raffle tickets. Five bucks worth seemed like heaps at the time, but in retrospect, obviously not enough. As we fought our way through the array of human food chain specimens at the bar (“ahhh, excuse ME mate, I WAS actually next, so you can bugger your smelly flanneletted self off for just a tick whilst I get two glasses of cheap fizzy wine…), Clubbin’ Kim did the organised thing and grabbed one of those numbers on a post that would eventually signal our turn for a dinner table. And then, on cue, the cricket went off the big screen and the meat raffle started.

And here we were, a bunch of chooks in a brewery yard, craning our necks, checking our tickets to see if we’d won a slab of meat wrapped in polystyrene, flapping around in disgust (Bwaarhk! Bwaark!) when none of us won so much as a bloody chop. This one guy, seriously, won five trays. Who leaves the club (dressed in his best K-Mart tracky daks) carting a wheelbarrow of packaged sheep and cow behind them? (Someone who doesn’t want to do the grocery shop this weekend I guess…) It took us complaining chooks a good few minutes (and another fizzy wine) to recover.

The experience did lead me to wonder about how a vegetarian meat raffle might look. Would you package up a tray of tofu and chickpea burgers? Or does the vegetarian who wins just sneak up and whisper “no really, I’ll just have the salad thanks” to the guy with the microphone (“A- haaaaaahhhhhhhh! We have a VEG-E-TAR-I-AN winner! What would you like love? A lettuce steak? Mushroom risotto?”

And what about the feelings of the animals at the abbatoir. Not so much about being killed (although, obviously quite an anxious time for the poor moo-ers). I mean, about where the meat you’ve been cultivating on your rump will end up. Your reason for living. Is there a hierarchy? Does one cow gloat amongst the bloat about being exported to the Japanese market whilst another winces that he’s being packed into a polystyrene meat pack for the club? Do the chooks ruffle each other’s feathers about who gets to go to KFC to get the 11 secret herbs and spices and who gets microwaved at Red Rooster?

Human or animal, it’s not easy being at the bottom of the food chain.

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Teenage Dirtbag, Wheatus, 2000.