Mimi Smartypants Has a Beef!
"There I was, at a baby shower. Although I do not enjoy these type of events, particularly when the majority of the participants are so blonde and girly and sundress-bedecked and adorable that I feel I should be over in the corner stomping grapes and giving everyone the Evil Eye, the shower was in honor of a good friend of mine (and her fetus), so I sucked it up and went to the Drake for high tea and exclaiming over little pastel outfits. And really, it wasn't that bad. In fact, it was highly amusing! Because of Beef Woman!
"Talk at the baby shower naturally drifted toward children and the raising thereof. I have a two-year-old girl, Beef Woman has a two-year old girl. However, in case her highlighted hair and strappy sandals vs. my dishevelment and combat boots didn't clue you in, our approaches to life and parenting could not have been more different. It was as if she had been paid to study my opinions on bedtimes, food, television, Disney Princess crap, education, and discipline, and to then take the exact opposite stand. The contrast was so extreme that I was left feeling not so much judgmental as awestruck at the diversity of parenthood.
"The only thing that got to me was her constant return to the topic of beef. Whenever I tuned back in to her conversation, she was mentioning beef. Her daughter is a picky eater, but at least she eats beef. It's difficult to work all day and come home and prepare meals, so she makes a lot of beef on the weekends and freezes it. They went to a wedding and her kid wouldn't eat much of anything except for the beef. The daughter finished all her beef so she got to have ice cream (no word on whether it was beef flavor). Costco often has big sales on beef. Her favorite of the tea sandwiches was the one with roast beef. I began to suspect this woman was a secret buzz marketer for the Beef Board, and I also began to suspect that I would start flinging scones around and screaming like an insane baboon if I had to hear the word "beef" one more time."
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