Endopolis

People always ask me: "Why are you vegetarian?"  Here's a story that sums up yet another reason why I don't eat things with legs.

Friday evening, my doorbell rang. I opened the door to find an old, frail Mexican man standing there. We both said hello, and I looked over the man's shoulder. I could see a beat-up, white Toyota pickup idling out in the middle of the street. I thought he had some kind of trouble and needed help.

Leaning on his cane, he asked, "You want tamales?"

"Excuse me?" I asked, surprised.

"I sell tamales," he said, in broken English.

My Spanish is terrible, so I tried to answer back as best I could: "Ahh, excellente! Vegetariano?"

"Si, si," he responded, waving me out to his truck.

So I followed, and he opened up a huge, foil-lined cooler packed with hot tamales.

"My wife made..." They were very fresh. He sold me four for $5 -- they smelled great.

Inside, we were already cooking dinner, but I took a peak inside the corn-wrapped tamales. Couldn't see any meat. Great. I wrapped them up in foil and stuck them in the fridge hoping to eat them the next day.

The next day, I peeked inside, and they were filled with what looked like steak. So I wrapped them back up and have since given them away to friends who enjoy carne. Or pollo. Or whatever it was. (Puerco?)

On Saturday, I played golf with my brother-in-law's father, who was raised in New Mexico. After telling my tamale story, he told us the story of a boy who was famous for selling the best-tasting tamales he's ever had. Week after week he and friends bought tamales from this boy, who pushed his cart around town, selling food.

After a while, the town's cats started disappearing, and nobody could figure out why. One day, someone found out what the secret source material was for the tamales: cats.

I never asked what happened to the boy, but needless to say: I don't eat things with legs.