Footprint

(Chronological index: After college, Before Denise)

"Maybe you ought to consider your environmental footprint, Master," Annie said.

"Footprint," Ray repeated. "That's funny because I could stomp you flat. In my footprint."

"Ah. Ha. Ha." Annie's tone was deadpan. She held her t-shirt up to the light coming through the dining room window. It was clear enough to read newspaper through the fingerprint-sized grease stains.

Ray reached for another rib and two more paper towels. The lard from his hand had soaked instantly through her clothes. Even with them removed, she felt a layer of blubber smeared over her hips, waist and thighs.

"Seriously, Ray, a vegan diet?" She rolled up the t-shirt and threw it onto the bones plate. Her shorts followed as she walked over to the pile of towels. "It'd be healthier for you. You'd lose weight, feel younger, your blood gases would balance nicely."

"Do you know what blood gases ARE?" he asked. He swilled some of his Coke. She picked up a corner of the top towel and twisted it around herself.

"You can't argue with experts that show up on Oprah!" she yelled. "THEY know what blood gases are and THEY say vegan food is good for…your, uh, your gas."

"My gaassssss issssss fien," Ray belched. She rolled her eyes, careful to first point her face at his so he would appreciate the expression.

He reached for another rib.

"And it's not just YOUR health, Master," she said. She dragged the soiled towel over to throw on the pile of bones. Ray reached down to fold it and tuck it in under some ribs.

"If more of you overmassed tyrants were to increase the vegetable market, there'd be fewer industrial farms. More land set aside to plants you'll eat, rather than for your food animals to eat."

She turned back to the pile of towels. Ray reached over her head and carefully picked one up. He used half to wipe his fingers clean, then tore the clean half off for her.

Annie twisted it into a covering that would last until bath time.

"Fewer cows would mean less cattle-based methane, which would be better for the ozone," she went on.

"That's an urban myth," he replied.

"HOW could COW FARTS be an URBAN myth?" she shrieked. She stomped up to the edge of his plate. "There's nothing URBAN about raising COWS!" She calmed a bit, taking a step back. "Although there's plenty of BULL downtown… Still! A PASTORAL myth, maybe, or a plantation myth, I could buy."

"Not a plantation. You don't plant cows. A ranch myth, if you're going to go down that path."

"I'll go down any path I goddamned well want to, if you don't freaking mind, o lord of all he dismays." He dropped another bone. She pantomimed wiping off another spattering of grease spread by the impact.

He rolled HIS eyes.

"Fine," he said.

"What's fine?" she asked.

"We'll go vegan."

"Wait, wait, waitwaitwait!" she protested. "What's with your sudden inability to master pronouns?"

"There's no way _I_ go vegan alone," Ray said. "If I'm not bringing meat into the house for my benefit, I'm sure not bringing meat table scraps into the house for my pet."

"TABLE SCRAPS!" she shouted. "Is that what you think of my contribution to the dinner table? Begging SCRAPS!?!?!"

"What the Hell do you contribute?" he shot back.

"I taste EVERYTHING you cook and I give you the most honest feedback you have EVER received on your efforts!"

"You've certainly never been worried about ruining a date by being critical," he said with a thoughtful nod.

"Damn straight," she nodded. "I am your greatest fan AND your most familiar critic AND I have never lied about whether you succeeded or failed."

"June 1979," Ray said instantly, "the baked apples."

"No, no, I liked them that way," she replied, also instantly. "You know, baked apples are good a little burnt."

"Request permission," Ray said loftily, "to treat the witness as hostile, or at least a tiny little liar." She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Besides," she went on, "sylphs are like cats. We need a certain amount of protein every single day. Or we get sick and die."

"Vegans get their protein from vegetables, nuts, soy milk, tofu…"

"Cats," Annie interrupted, panic in her voice, "rely on SPECIFIC nutrients from ANIMAL TISSUES to meet their SPECIFIC nutritional DEMANDS, Master."

"No tofu?" he asked.

"Maybe to put in the catapult and throw up onto your pillow," she threatened.

"Noted," he said. "Still, if you're eating meat, you know I'm going to beat you up and take away your lunch baloney."

"Yes, that is SO like you, Master. It's not enough to oppress the undermassed, you have to twist the knife."

"And you know, Annie, that to be fully vegan, you can't put butter on your roasted corn."

"What?" she outraged. "Now you're just making things up to be mean!"

"Nope. Butter's an animal derivative. You can't honor the animal's right to not live in subservience to man dietary whims and force them to live in subservience to man's dietary whims. You may make your peace with eating meat, doctor's orders, but I can never again barbecue corn in garlic butter."

"Oh," she said. She was silent for a moment. "Well, screw that, then."

"Are they always like this?" Ray's cousin Erica asked.

"Sadly," Mom said. "Maybe a little more so because of the audience."

"It's great," Dad said. "Dinner and a show, even if someone has decided we can't watch TV during the meal."

"But they kinda dominate the conversation…"

Annie turned and scampered across the table, jumping down onto the edge of Erica's plate. She arranged her dress-towel about her and gazed up in apparently happy anticipation. "So, okay, tell us all about your first day at college! Meet any boys?"

"Annie!" Ray snapped.

"Oh, right." She cleared her throat, then gestured as if she was reading from an invisible script held in her hands. "Relate to us all the excitement of starting your college career, without delving into any personal details such as chatting up boys or experimenting with sex, drugs, alcohol or imported software."

Erica laughed and pet the sylph. "Okay, well, mostly today was administrative…"





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