Vegans

Shannon's dad, who has a slew of health problems of his own, recently became vegan. Brenda hates veganism like Tyler Perry hates making anything good, so she did not take this well.

She seemed to take it well; she started cooking vegan food for Shannon's dad and never really mentioned it to him. Naturally, however, there was major passive-aggressiveness at play.

Conveniently, everything Brenda made had something Shannon was allergic to in it, so she could never have any of it. It also recently came to light that Brenda had been sneaking eggs and dairy into his food because she does that sort of thing.

 Shannon's dad became vegan for health reasons, and after a month or so, got blood tests to see if it was improving his health. Bus since he's been unwittingly eating animal products, his lab results will likely show little change. This should give Brenda the satisfaction of insisting that veganism doesn't work.

Uh, right.

Back In The Day

As I've likely mentioned before, Shannon is lactose intolerant (which is quite common in those of Native American descent), but this isn't a problem as she doesn't eat dairy anyway. But back in the day, Shannon wasn't a vegan or really aware of her lactose intolerance. 

When we went to France together on a school trip in eighth grade, and most of our meals featured dairy pretty heavily. One day spent toodling around a smaller town in the south of France stands out in particular; lunch was enormous slices of cheesy pizza, dessert was ice cream, and a good part of the afternoon was spent at a chocolate shop. 

The chocolate shop also sold pastries, tea, and coffee, and had a few small tables. A handful of kids with our group had ducked into the shop to get out of the drizzle and warm up with a coffee. We'd been walking around all day, and as a result I'd drunk lots of water and had few bathroom breaks. I really needed to pee.

I got in line for the bathroom, a single unit, behind Shannon and a few of the other girls from our group. Shannon went ahead of me, and, OH MY GOD, READER, I thought my bladder might explode.

I waited outside the door for ages. I knocked a few times and begged Shannon to hurry up, urging her to think of the terrible sepsis that would occur should my bladder indeed burst. She responded that she was "feeling sick." Finally, finally, the door opened and Shannon edged out sheepishly. After I was free from the agitation of an uncomfortably full bladder, I asked Shannon if she was okay. I felt awful for her; how embarrassed she must have been!

Though, in all fairness, I did barf in front of a very nice cathedral later that day. 

Girly Stuff

The other day in class during a lecture, Shannon leaned over and whispered "I'm wearing a white skirt with no underwear while I'm on my period...I LIVE DANGEROUSLY." For many valid reasons, I found this unbelievably hilarious.

On a different occasion, I had bled through my underwear and excused myself during class to go to the bathroom. I rinsed them out rather furtively and was waving them about under the hand dryer when someone walked in. Thankfully, it was Shannon. I can't honestly say there's anyone I want to walk in on me while I'm drying my undies at school, but I think Shannon would definitely be the best person to walk into that situation.

I guess where I'm going with this is, Shannon gets it: she got her first period when we were in third grade. We went to elementary school together, but I have awkward parents and didn't know what any of the mysterious looks and vague references to "girly stuff" meant. Besides, Shannon and I weren't terribly close back then (read: Shannon thought I was super weird and creepy, because I was).

Apparently, Shannon's devotion to organic food stems from her tragically early entrance into the very shittiest part of womanhood. The hormones in milk and meat and some other non-organic foods can trigger puberty in young kids. Another result of this is that Shannon was about 5'3" in fourth grade. Which, admittedly, makes for some pretty funny class photos.