My mom was a big foodie and loved cooking for people. Barbecues were always a huge thing with my family, and my mom loved to try new recipes. She also never made a fuss if anyone asked for accommodations. She was always willing to make adjustments so everyone could have at least something they could enjoy, and everyone was welcome at her table.
Once, my nephew had a girlfriend who was… a bit strange. Let’s call her Cleo.
It wasn’t so much that she was inherently a bad person, but her thought processes were sometimes hard to follow, and she had a tendency to hog conversations and make them all about her.
Cleo also followed all kinds of trends when she thought it was fancy. If social media hyped depression, she was all depressed and proclaimed that happily to everyone, totally oblivious to the fact that several of my family members battled with diagnosed depression and that my mom and I had to spend significant time in mental hospitals for depression.
When one of Cleo’s favorite actors was advocating for women’s rights, she became a ferocious women’s rights activist, blaming all women around her for not caring enough and buying into the “paternal narrative” — whatever that was supposed to mean. She accused them of wanting all women to be stay-at-home moms, completely disregarding that my family is mostly blue-collar and all the women have been workers all their lives. No one, from my great-grandmother to me today, has ever been a stay-at-home mom.
When social media claimed pescatarians were en vogue, Cleo claimed to be a pescatarian — no matter that she didn’t eat fish at all. She proclaimed that it meant eating only chicken.
At the time that this story happened, Cleo got it into her head that she was a vegan. And no, being vegan was not a problem for my family, nor would it have been a problem on this special day if Cleo really was a vegan. The problem was that she wasn’t a vegan; she just fancied herself being one.
We had a barbecue planned, and my whole family was there. I also brought my friend and roomie who was a vegetarian. My mom created a group chat on a messenger app and asked [Friend] and Cleo what they would like to eat. When Cleo answered that she didn’t know what she could ask for, my mom offered several options for them to choose from. [Friend] said, to make it easier for my mom, she would also eat the vegan option Cleo chose, knowing from my tales that Cleo was a very picky eater.
Cleo then wrote that some veggie shashlik and hummus would be nice, so my mom made that. She told both of them specifically what she planned to put in the shashlik. She also made several salads and a chimichanga for dips along with them, as well as vegan mayonnaise, the promised hummus, and several other vegan-friendly dips to choose from, and foil-baked potatoes. Cleo knew exactly what would be there for her to eat and happily agreed with everything, enthusiastically writing back how much she would enjoy eating all that. Despite being asked repeatedly if she would like anything else, she always answered everything was fine.
Knowing how nitpicky Cleo was, my nephew brought a separate grill to put the veggie options on so they wouldn’t touch the meat. This was solely for her since [Friend] doesn’t really care much about all this; she’s the type who eats what’s available as long as it is vegetarian-friendly. She’s also a bit picky, but when push comes to shove, she eats bread and some salad and is happy as a clam; she doesn’t make her own peckishness into other people’s problems.
The day came, and everything was finished. Madam Cleo walked over to the vegan dishes, scrunched her nose, and proclaimed:
Cleo: “I can’t eat all this; it’s not really vegan.”
After pushing a bit, she proclaimed:
Cleo: “I don’t think this will taste good, either; it looks strange.”
Then, she marched to the kitchen and prepared herself some toast with butter! Yes, real butter, which was totally not vegan. She could not eat the butter right there at the table — no, that was not vegan — but it had to be the new piece of butter from the fridge and the store-bought toast, because — and this is a verbal citation — “homemade bread is NEVER vegan!”
Cleo then proceeded to complain that no one had asked her for her opinion before, although she had been engaging in a messenger group generated just exactly for that and not telling anyone anything and agreeing with everything for a whole week!
When [Friend] very gently inquired why she didn’t say anything during the chats, Cleo claimed that she felt overwhelmed by my mom’s suggestions and didn’t dare to voice her concerns after my mom had “decided” what she should eat.
At this point, my mom was fuming, so I decided to keep Cleo away for the rest of the evening and engage her in talk so my mom and the rest of the family would not have to deal with her silly and self-centered nonsense.
[Friend] stayed with me because she knew me and found my way of dealing with such situations amusing.
So, we engaged in talk. I prompted Cleo to tell me about herself, and she willingly obliged.
All in all, I kept her occupied for several hours, never letting her feel bad, and constantly keeping her talking. [Friend] quietly sat next to me, dipping bits of her freshly made and completely vegan baguette in fresh olive oil and salt, smiling and nodding to Cleo who explained to her how that was not vegan.
My family members dipped in and out of the conversation, looking at me with disbelief and shaking their heads, but gracefully not saying anything to aggravate her.
When it was time to say goodbye, Cleo beamed at me and proclaimed loudly:
Cleo: “Thank you for the nice evening! It was a joy talking with you! It’s really nice to meet someone who’s open to new knowledge.”
Then, she left her stage.
My sister approached me.
Sister: “I listened to part of that conversation. How the h*** did you stand that? How could you be so calm? I only listened to bits here and there, but I wanted to strangle her halfway through.”
[Friend] chuckled and answered before I could.
Friend: “Don’t you remember what [My Name] does for a living? She works from home, so I listen to her when she works. Cleo might think she got a nice conversation, but I know what she really got: the world’s longest technician service call! [My Name] pretended it was a work call; she even used her script to prompt her in between. Cleo didn’t know it, but she called her Internet provider today and got troubleshooting. What you heard was her giving her technician a top rating. I just waited all the time for [My Name] to tell her to restart her router.”
And what could I say? She was right; that’s exactly what I did. I never thought that eight years as a tier-three service technician working escalations at a call center for a service provider would pay out this way. But I guess if you’re able to get a non-cooperative idiot to follow your instructions to get his equipment to run properly without shouting at him for his stupidity, keeping a delusional wannabe vegan with a mission to tell everyone their opinion away from your mom is a piece of cake.
The story has a happy ending; my nephew ditched her later. He’s now dating another girl. She’s a vegan for real. She really enjoys barbecues, and guess what? She’s always happy with the food because she helps with preparations and cooks her preferred food herself.
