"how do vegetarians celebrate easter?" i'm not a vegetarian. my girlfriend is. for as close as people at my work have ever come to a vegetarian, you might as well substitute 'lesbian', 'communist' or 'shiite'. the people i work with live in and around the twin cities in minnesota. most of them group ni the area or in a foreign country. if you've ever heard garrison kieller's prairie home companion, these are the people he's making fun of, not the people sitting in the audience laughing at his drole sense of humor.
the asker of the question is a 57 year old woman who describes herself as either from new orleans or chicago depending on how you ask her, but she's lived in minnesota longer than i've been alive. her educational background ranges from dropping out of high school and getting her g.e.d. to completing two years of college, from which she left because in her mind higher education had nothing left to offer her. her children are grown and have families of thier own. and, when she's not complaining about work, she talks constantly about shopping, reality television or bowling, sometimes in such a way that i can't quite tell which.
for the last couple of hours, she and some of the other women in my area have been discussing what they are going to eat on easter and whether or not they are going to be the ones preparing the meal. all of the younger gals are cooking, all of the older gals are going to eat meals prepared by thier daughters or daughter's in law. they never ask me, probably because i'm a guy, but maybe because they suspect that i am a better cook than they are, which from the conversations i've overheard, i most likely am.
i take only a second or two in formulating my answer. i don't consider myself christian, and not having kids don't buy into the commercial side of easter either. but, still i manage to answer with a straight face, "they get all dressed-up and go to church just like everybody else. then, when the service is over, they go looking for easter eggs."
