What Did That TV Just Say?

By Hay, Guest Contributor

There I was, minding my own business, snuggling with my hamster- when I heard it. “We even have a garden burger for your teenage daughter if she’s going through a phase”

WHAT??

I whipped my head around. Who’s making fun of me now? Red Robin? I was offended! REALLY offended! If garden burgers are only for teenage girls, somehow I missed the Meetup because I never see teenage girls eating gardenburgers anywhere – except me. Was that TV just talking directly at me? Encouraging others to make fun of me too? When Jeremy’s mother comes to camp every morning and brings him Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast and then comes back later and brings him McDonald’s every day for lunch is that a phase? (I hope so, yuck!) And if it is, why isn’t the TV making fun of him?

Same day, I saw a Yoplait commercial. This guy was eating frozen yogurt and he said, “I’d like to meet the cow that made this.”

I’m not even sure what that means. He would walk into the dairy plant, step over the dead and downed cows, ignore the stench, and shake the cow’s hoof in thanks for a lifetime of misery in exchange for him eating one cup of yogurt? While the same cow is bleeding, infected and crying for its babies? How obnoxious can you be? I can’t believe how much everybody thinks this is okay and ignores what is right in front of them. How did the meat and dairy industry pull it off?

We have TV shows and TV channels dedicated to BBQing, duck hunting, ‘dangerous’ fishing (all fishing is dangerous for the fish), alligator hunting, rodeos, blah blah blah. Can’t I just have one channel out of a million dedicated to vegans? Where I don’t have to worry about Red Robin making fun of me, Yoplait being clueless, or Taco Bell saying everyone secretly hates me? Just one? Is it really that much to ask? One safe media place just for me. I share this planet, too- and so does that cow who made your Yoplait yogurt!

Although that seems like a good ending to this blog, I like to try to find one good thing to add- one glimmer of hope- so here is today’s:

I was in the car about a mile from my house when I saw it, a giant billboard with the face of a rhinoceros. In big letters it said “I am not medicine!” Seemed like a weird place- my little town, my little highway. I didn’t think they would have a large audience who might care. It says one rhino is killed every day over a myth that their horn cures cancer and hangovers. It isn’t true. And all these rhinos are killed over it. I didn’t know this. I learned something new. They got the message to at least one person that cares, me!

And for that, that’s the hand I want to shake. Take that, Yoplait!

Photo credit: Hay