fandomhigh | Cafeteria; Monday Lunchtime [ 01/30 ].

Not only did it seem entirely unnecessary, it was even so oxymoronical that even Britta, with hypocrisy imbedded into her to her very core, was skeptical.

"Are you sure there's no meat in the vegetarian meatloaf?"

The cafeteria staff was making it quite clear on their expressions that this was why they hated Mondays so much, they should be serving lasagna.

"I mean, did you make it yourself, or did you get it from somewhere else? How can you be sure?"

The lack of response was not going to prevent Britta from continuing.

"No meat? None whatsoever? Meat by-product? Anything?"

Eyes went back to the board mentioning the offerings. Someone went ahead and underlined Vegetarian.

"I can have this checked out at a lab, you know."

The staff remained unphased. Britta sighed, holding out her tray. "Fine, I'll take some. And some mashed potatoes, too. But no jello. They use horses hooves for that, you know."

With that, she got her lunch, found a table, and set to the task of leaning in very close to the square of supposed meat-free meat on her plate to search for signs of animals, though, really, she didn't know what exactly she was expecting to find. Maybe a slice of bacon or a snout or something.

[[ open cafeteria is open, of course! ]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"...no," Britta said, after a moment, looking up from her plate. What was once non-meatloaf had basically become ground not-hamburger. She somehow managed to sound equal part relieved and disappointment with her assessment, and the next part came out as if some great justice had been resolved in the world. "I think it's legit."

"Oh, good," Tara said, though she was squinting at Britta's plate as if she was afraid to ask legit what?. "It's -- bad when they serve non-legit food. I usually just get the tuna salad plate."

Which she poked at with her fork, as if demonstrating.

"And, uh, I'm Tara."

"Well, I mean," Britta cocked her chin toward the board listing the food available today, "vegetarian meatloaf sounds a little suspicious, don't you think? This is why I usually don't eat in places like a cafeteria, but..." There was a bit of an intake of breath. "I'm broke."

She tried a faint smile at the other girl, though, to push all that aside. "Britta," she offered back, scoping out the other girl thoughtfully, before smirking slightly and asking, "Come here often?"

Oh, that was what it was. Tara added vegetarian meatloaf to her list of foods not to try.

"A lot suspicious," she had to agree, giving Britta a friendly once-over in return. "And ... only when I have to, I guess? This makes a good pit stop before my movie class." She made a face. "Which, I actually signed up for thinking it'd be about philosophy."

"Movies and philosophy?" asked Britta with a quirked eyebrow. "Okay, I guess I can kind of see how they could go together, but it seems like a stretch. You can be philosophical about almost anything if you really wanted to, though."

Like this meatloaf. Britta's eyes slowly ventured back to her plate, and there was only going to be a short window of time in which someone could intervene before she proved her point with the meatloaf as an example, but no one wanted that.

Tara rolled her eyes. "It's called Philosophy," she explained, and speared a piece of lettuce. "But really it's just watching movies. Last week it was this horrible one with a leprechaun killing people. Which ... is sort of offensive to Celtic mythology, right?"

"Totally offensive," said Britta, emphatically, though she really didn't know anything about Celtic mythology. "I mean, why would a leprechaun be killing people anyway? Unless he was just really sick of all those people trying to steal his gold, but could you blame him, then? The guy's probably had to deal with people trying to steal his gold for centuries; there's only so much oppression a person can take."

"Right!" Tara answered, with an empathetic nod. "Most fae are pretty live-and-let-live. I mean, I'm a witch, so all the stereotyping in horror movies just gets to me."

[OOC: So I went to a meeting after work and never got back online oops?]

Man. This chick was just so new-agey and cool, so Britta found herself nodding along. "Oh, totally," she said. "I mean, I'm not a witch or anything, I'm not sure I believe all of that, but I do believe in holistic healing and everything."

Same basic thing, right?

"You can't walk, like, two feet without running into stereotypes."

Okay, maybe more actually new than new-ish.

Tara smiled skeptically.

"You aren't sure you believe in magic yet? I mean, it's up to you, totally, but ... this place tends to kind of turn people around on that one."

"Well, I mean," Britta offered, "if it can be proven or makes sense as a theory, then there's no reason not to believe it, but I haven't encountered anything,"--yet--,"that couldn't be explained by good old science. Although..." Her eyes drifted toward the mess on her plate, "I don't think even good old science could explain vegetarian meatloaf."

"Yeah, what's actually in that?" Tara asked, diverted for a moment. "Is it like chickpeas and oatmeal?"

That would (kind of) explain the color, at least.

"Anyhow" -- she added with a little shrug -- "what about all the boys being girls for the weekend? That doesn't seem very science-y."

Britta shrugged. "I wasn't here, so as far as I know, that could have been a mass delusion, something in the air," she reasoned. "I was in D.C., protesting."

There was a slight pause, and she poked at her plate with her fork again. "And I think there's carrots? I hope those are carrots."

Tara snorted. "Yeah, I bet the guys would be happier if it was a delusion," she said, but dropped it to eye Britta's plate. "Oooh. Maybe some spinach, too."

She took another bite of her tuna. "What, did you go to Occupy D.C. for the weekend?"

"No, it was something called SOPA," said Britta, eye lighting up with excitement. "I hadn't heard of it before," because she was still stuck in 1997, mentally, "but it was all about censorship, and I can totally get down with that. I love being so close to D.C. now. I bet I can find a different cause and a different protest practically every weekend! Maybe we can even get together a whole group us and go down and really buff up the ranks!"

Tara had heard of SOPA, a little. She nodded even though protests weren't really her thing. (They were loud and angry, and she wasn't a huge fan of either of those things.)

"Sure," she said easily. "I'm so lame about getting into D.C. I think last time I went might have been taking somebody to a gay bookstore."

"Did you have to go all the way to D.C. just for a gay bookstore?" asked Britta, brushing right past her surprise that there were actually whole bookstores just for gay. "Now that's lame, if you ask me."

"It's a teeny tiny island," Tara pointed out, not seeming terribly bothered by it. "We're lucky it has a bookstore. Which is ... I mean, it's cute."

She lowered her voice. "I usually just order off Amazon."

Cafeteria; Monday Lunchtime [ 01/30 ].

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject