"This aint no play on words, my love for him's absurd"

I was out in the courtyard with Vegatrain the other night and I must have said something wacky. I don't remember which particular thing it was that I said, but it made him laugh and shake his head.

"You know," he said, "This is the first relationship I've ever been in where I've been the comparatively normal one."

I conceded that he was probably right, considering the two of us. I admitted that I didn't think I'd ever get to experience being the "comparatively normal" one. But Vegatrain is probably the closest I've ever come to it, although that's probably because we are ludicrously similar as people. His parents have stopped even trying to differentiate between us, insisting that we are actually just the same person.

I have said to him before that we could never break up, on the simple basis that we would never find another relationship where this level of absurdity is acceptable. I have mentioned before that we basically communicate in absurdist song parodies, but I don't think I've really driven the point home that we actually do that. Most of the time. The most common one would probably be me singing "Don't go doing a fart!" whenever Vegatrain passes gas, but it is one of many. Ask Meattrain if you don't believe me. He hates musicals more than anything so it's pretty traumatic for him. 

But Vegatrain does some pretty ridiculous things all of his own. I have told you about the wonderful procrastination incident. There are a few other quirks I would like to bring attention to.

Vegatrain, as you may have guessed from the name, is a vegetarian. He has read a lot of books on the subject and as a result he does not eat meat. Nor do I, for the record. I do want to be clear on one thing though - we are not, as I would refer to them, awful vegetarians. Not to mention any names, PETA. We both hate the fact that PETA are always asserting that they are the voice for every vegetarian in the world, because we do not want to be associated with them in any way. We don't want people to think that if we see them holding a steak, we will just flat out murder them. If you want to know exactly why they are so awful, watch the Penn and Teller episode because it sums it up much more succinctly than I ever could.

Anyway, my point was that Vegatrain has a social conscience. And maybe, sometimes, he might just use his ideology as something of an excuse. But don't think I'm criticising - I think it's fantastic. I noticed that he has a tendency to use paper towels to put food on instead of plates. I asked him if there were no clean plates and this is what he told me.

"Well, I've thought about this. And I figured that there is a bigger shortage of water than paper in this part of the world right now, and paper is a much more renewable resource. So it's much more environmentally sound to use paper towels."

Nothing to do with the fact that you don't want to do any dishes, then? Of course not. That's just a bonus, is it?

The other thing I would probably mention about Vegatrain is his 'Irrational fear of all living sea creatures', as he wrote on his centrelink forms. He actually has this. I once (meanly) made a photoshop swapping Vegatrain's face with that of a stingray just on the basis that he is terrified of the things. He has said to me before that he is happy to go the beach, just as long as I don't expect him to go swimming. It was a bit hard for me to understand, coming from a town where I literally swam in the ocean every morning before school*. But these are Vegatrain's problems with the ocean: it's dirty, fish have sex in it, there's salt and seaweed everywhere, there are heaps of creatures that can hurt you that you can't even see. He has even go so far as to propose a fake ocean, for people like him. A simulated beach where the water is filtered and you can swim with the friendlier fish and actually see them properly because the water is clear and clean.

I don't know if that will ever happen, but a man can dream.

-Smackie Onassis

*My morning routine in high school: up at 5:45, jog to the beach, swim, jog back home, get ready for school. I know, what a jerk. I did it because I loved it though. It also meant that I could occasionally brag about being hit on before 7am on a school day, thanks to surfers.