The following conversation, if you can even call it that, occurred during breakfast today:
“Vegans are just like pandas.”
“What? That’s ridiculous. How do you even know that?”
“It’s not ridiculous. Pandas are actually omnivores, but they’re too dumb to realize that they can eat anything but bamboo. So they just sit in their tree all day eating bamboo.”
“So I’m a dumb panda because I choose not to eat meat?”
“You’re not dumb, you’re just choosing not to acknowledge your basic instinct to hunt.”
“It still feels like you’re calling me a dumb panda.”
How much do I love that when I was researching pandas, I came across the WWF website which describes the pandas as universally loved? Sure they’re rare and endangered, but that all pales in comparison to how universally loved these little dough balls of fun are!
It’s not that I resent being compared to a panda because let’s be honest, they’re just cute little cuddle balls, but when I think pandas, I kind of just think slow and dumpy. My love for this animal began when my mother first showed me the sneezing panda video and was only enhanced when I went to the zoo and watched a baby panda fall out of a tree only to get right back up and start munching on some bamboo. I remember thinking to my ten year-old self, will nothing phase this creature? Apparently not. Not even having the digestive tract of an omnivore can keep this animal from eating a mostly vegetarian diet (99% of their diet consists of bamboo). Pandas adapted to the lack of meat and excess bamboo and began leading an almost-vegetarian lifestyle. Five gold stars for you guys!
My favorite excerpt from my “extensive” research on pandas: “The pandas evolved, but its intestines didn’t.” I just picture this big panda with intestines wrapped all around him. I bet all the polar bears are like, “That silly panda and his prehistoric intestines.”
What I learned: I can love pandas even more than I thought. I have no problem being compared to a panda because a.) They’re cute, and b.) They have adapted wonderfully to their environment around them… except for that tricky intestine of theirs. Pandas were sent down from the gods for my own personal enjoyment. (Thanks, Big G.) And lastly, people don’t know the difference between carnivores and omnivores.
The Big V 