Good manners, bad vegetarian, democracy shit, and two reader submissions

The other night, Christina and I drove to Culver City to see some friends. On the way, we stopped at a place called Samosa House to pick up dinner. As you can probably guess, Samosa House serves Texas bbq. Just kidding. They serve Indian food. The ordering experience is totally straightforward. You pick rice (white or brown), then select three sides.

When it was our turn, Christina told the woman behind the counter we’d be ordering four combination plates. For efficiency, I guess, the woman asked what kind of rice everyone wanted. Then she made two combination plates with white rice and two with brown rice. Her assembly line was ready to go, but just then another customer entered Samosa House.

“I’m just here to pick-up a to-go order,” she said. “Can I go first?”

We weren’t in a rush, and it seemed like a simple request, so Christina said sure. With a heavy sigh, the woman behind the counter put our plates aside, then ducked into the kitchen to grab the other customer’s order.

“Oh, I also need a quart of curry,” the woman said.

The woman behind the counter looked annoyed, but the woman with the to-order apologized to us.

“No worries,” Christina said.

“I also need Naan bread,” the woman said.

I rolled my eyes, but I don’t think the line-jumper noticed. She was too busy adding a third and fourth item to her order.

“Sorry I’m so disorganized,” she said.

I wasn’t sure disorganization was the problem here. To me, it seemed like the line-jumper was oblivious to fact that we live in a society, which means, among other things, waiting your turn. But the line-jumper had other ideas.

“You’re so smart,” the woman said to Christina. “You wrote down your order. You’re so smart. I wish I was as smart as you. She really knows her stuff!”

Now, Christina is smart. Really smart. And she knows her stuff. But with all due respect to my wife, she didn’t exactly invent the wheel when she wrote a list of everyone’s dinner order.

“Can I also get two orders of samosas?” the line-jumper asked.

That wasn’t smart. Actually, it was a bridge too far for the woman behind the counter. She had given an inch, but the line-jumper had taken a mile.

“You’re going to have to wait,” she said. “I’m going to finish their order first, then I’ll help you.”

“But I just need…”

“To wait,” the woman said. “You just need to wait your turn.”

Advice from a bad vegetarian

Situation Normal exists to amuse you, but if I can help you think about something in a new way, I’m here for that too!

Recently, Mark Dolan, who writes Why Living Today Rocks, emailed to ask for advice on eating plant-based.

I’ll get to my answer in a second, but first I think I need to tell you that I’m a bad vegetarian. Here are my bad vegetarian bona fides.

Back in college, I dabbled in vegetarianism. I’d love to say ethics, health, or environmentalism inspired my early plant-based dabbling. Wouldn’t that be nice? But the real motivation was the Wesleyan University dining hall, which consistently served up food that inspired many students to eat cereal for dinner.

My longest college meatless streak was nine weeks. I was doing fine, but then I picked up some extra hours at my student librarian job. I walked down to Main Street in Middletown, Connecticut to deposit my paycheck at the bank. But I made the mistake of pocketing $20. Well, that $20 immediately burned a giant hole in my pocket. On the way back to my dorm, I stopped at an Italian deli. I could’ve ordered something vegetarian, but instead I said, “Give me a chicken parm grinder.”

In middle-age, I got serious about vegetarianism. Well, as serious as I can get. This time around, health, ethics, and environmentalism all played a roll in my decision. My meatless streak lasted four years.

But one day, in the middle of the pandemic, I grew tired of cooking two different meals for two people. Instead of cooking a serving of ground beef and another serving of mushrooms for Taco Tuesday, I made chicken tacos. Some people might call that a fail, but those people are judgmental assholes.

These days, I don’t call myself a vegetarian. I’m an omnivore with plant-based tendencies. I pick plant-based options when I can, but I’m not strict about it. Which brings me to Mark’s email. The line that caught my eye was: “I’ve been at it for almost four years, but [I’m] not as strict as I might be.”

My second attempt at vegetarianism lasted a lot longer than my college dabbling. I think that’s because my motives were meaningful to mean and because I wasn’t very strict the second time around. I literally took it one day at a time. After my first vegetarian day, I told myself to see what happened the next day. I repeated that process for more than 1,400 days! By taking each day as it came, I never fell into a binary mindset, where I was either a lean, mean, plant-eating machine, or Hannibal Lecter.

Escaping that binary mindset made it easier to eat plant-based for four years, but it also made it easy to cope with the aftermath of crossing the chicken-based Rubicon that was Taco Tuesday. I didn’t feel bad about my decision to eat chicken that Tuesday in the middle of the pandemic because that Tuesday was just one day in a lifetime of eating. The next day, I ate plant-based, but the day after that, I ate leftover chicken tacos.

Currently, I eat more meat than I did during my four-year vegetarian streak (obvi), but I eat a lot less meat than I did before the streak began. On balance, I’m still working (imperfectly) toward my plant-based goal, and most days, I actually achieve that goal. That’s real change! But I think that if I had set out to be a vegetarian for life, I would’ve failed within months. Strict labels and a rigid mindset aren’t productive for me.

So, here’s my advice: eliminate the word “strict” from your vocabulary instead of eliminating a particular food from your diet. You might not feel like a perfect vegetarian, but I’ll bet dollars to vegan donuts that you’ll live a life that comes closer to aligning with your goals.

Help us in our mission to democratize finance!

The other Michael Estrin continues to be in demand, especially by recruiters who seek out the software engineer Michael Estrin by emailing the writer Michael Estrin. Usually, I enjoy writing back to these recruiters, but this time I my response was kinda shitty.

Here’s what Sid over at Affirm had to say about Michael Estrin joining their mission to “democratize finance.”👇

Here’s what I wrote back to Sid👇

Wish me luck, everyone! Shit could get very real next Tuesday.

Look Who’s Talking Back

There’s an old showbiz adage that says you shouldn’t work with kids or animals because they steal the scene. It’s good advice for actors, but lousy advice for parents, who typically work with their kids for a minimum of 18 years. There’s no solution here, but as Amran Gowani, who writes Field Research demonstrates, parents can cope by Tweeting about the fact that they’ve been relegated to punchline status.

Amran Gowani @amran_gowani

Daughter: Dad, when do people stop growing? Me: Everyone's body is different, but most people stop growing by 25. Certainly by 30. Daughter. Oh, so you're DEFINITELY not growing.

The new slang

Aquaman emailed the other day. Aquaman isn’t his real name. It’s an alias I chose because the email was from a man and the subject was aquatic.

Aquaman’s email raises several important questions.

1. Is “toned” some kind of new slang that the kids are using?

2. Was this anecdote something you had to be there to appreciate?

3. Why didn’t my high school have a water polo team?

ICYMI

I wrote about an electrician thinks the world is doomed. The electrician gave me apocalypse vibes, but Situation Normal readers responded with some excellent advice about pushing back against doom. Check out Mad Max: Beyond Reason, then stay for the comments.

Contribute a thing to Situation Normal!

The Wednesday edition doesn’t write itself. I need your help!

Do you have a question about something I’ve written? Got a weird overheard you want to share? See a product or sign that made you LOL, or WTF? Need life advice? Send your submissions to me at 👇

michael.j.estrin@gmail.com

When submitting, please say if you’d like an alias. Otherwise, I’ll use your first name. If you write a newsletter, I’m happy to link to it, so let me know!

If you’re new here, please👇

If you’re a returning champ, please👇

Stick around and chat!

You know the drill. I’ve got questions, you may or may not have answers.

1. Was the woman who jumped in front of us in line at Samosa House dumb, or playing dumb?

2. Any advice for my first day on the job at Affirm? I really want to knock it out of the park.

3. If you’re not up on your regional sandwich slang, some parts of New England call their sandwiches grinders, as opposed to subs, heroes, or hoagies. This regional slang used to be quaint. But in the digital age, I worry New England sandwiches might be confused with the Grindr dating app, and that this confusion could lead to unrealistic expectations for dinner and relationships. Are my concerns valid?

4. Have you dabbled in vegetarianism? Any advice you’d like to share?

5. In reference to Aquaman’s email, what’s a slang word you’ve been trying to popularize?

Until Sunday when I’ll have another story…

Finally, let me know you enjoy Situation Normal by hitting that ❤️ button 🙏👇