my first impression was, how much bleach she uses for that hair

She continued going about how she’d recently become a vegan.

“Froot Loops are vegan,” she said.

“Really?” I said.

“Mm hm. I became a vegan because eating meat and dairy products means animal suffering and slaughtering. I don’t want to be a part of that. Plus I gave up meat in support of world hunger.”

I nodded.

“At the moment I’m hunting for non-leather shoes because I’ve only got two pairs.  My main concern is my family, friends, and acquaintances.  Someone always brings up the subject of me being a vegan…and, of course, they don’t understand the difference between being a vegetarian and a vegan, so I’m just A Vegetarian.”  She shrugged bitterly. “And then there’s the whole issue about organic foods and how outrageously expensive they are…now, the issue of paying ridiculously high prices for organic fruits and vegetables really pisses me off.  Why should I have to pay not to be poisoned?  Shouldn’t it be the standard that there isn’t any crap in my food?  I think it’s sick. In the same vein:  Why should I have to be exposed to pollution and toxic air?  Why is that acceptable?”

She looked at me as if I was about to cut the throat of a calf.

That’s when her cell phone rang, thank God.

“Ooops, sorry, gotta take this call,” she said.

I smiled wearily and walked toward the exit sign.

Before I reached the doorway, I looked back at her.

She was lighting a cigarette.  I wondered if they were vegan cigarettes.

“Dump him!” she said into the phone.  “He’s got a personality disorder!  Leave him at once and go to a local shelter!”

As I got into my car and drove away, I turned on the radio.  Dr. Ginger was on.  She was a nationally syndicated talk show host who’d bailed on her marriage after “discovering her true brutal nature” and had become somewhat of a heroine among sexually frustrated, pre-menopausal secular humanists.

“At this point,” she told a caller from Santa Cruz.  “You should befriend a closeted homosexual who is about your age and needs a ‘front’.  Trot him around to all the family get-togethers.  Tell your parents that you dumped the other guy.  You may eventually have to marry the gay guy to keep it all believable, but that’s ok �" - until you end up sharing a man, but we won’t get into that…”

I changed the station, driving away from the sun.