I've been thinking a lot lately about whether I could ever go back to eating meat. I never was a true meat eater—I never hoed into a steak or enjoyed sausages—but I think it's because I'm on a drastic calorie-controlled diet that not having a lot of food is making me fantasise about possible eating scenarios. Something that keeps popping up is meat.
So, seeing as the Royal Adelaide Show is on at the moment, I decided to go there and visit the animals to see if I could picture myself eating them. I remember talking to my friend Andrew one night about possibly becoming a vegan, and he said he understood why people make that choice. He mentioned that, in an ideal world, people would go out, source their own game, kill it themselves, and then eat it.
See, that's the thing—it's not necessarily the killing of the animal to eat it that bothers me. But when we do it, it's not a fair fight. These animals die in the most horrific circumstances, full of fear, pain, and filth. It's the way we manhandle them that bothers me the most.
Below, you can see a photo of a cow and his handler that I took yesterday. You might just be able to see he is holding a phallic-looking rod, which he used to lightly tap the cow. But the cow was mooing, and he didn't like it. I just felt like saying, "Don't fucking touch the animal. Don't assert aggression over it because it's not a fair fight." It feels as if we torment them before we kill them, and that's what I dislike the most.
It was in the Farmyard Nursery that I saw baby cows, or calves. I was just looking at these beautiful little cows, thinking they should be with their mothers. They were very young. But they were dairy calves, and in true dairy fashion, they would have been taken from their mother not long after they were born, while the mother potentially ran after the truck or car they were being taken in.
I remember watching an interview with a dairy farmer, and the journalist asked him if he was separating families. He said no, and then added, "Only the mother and calf." I can appreciate that a dairy farm is a family's livelihood, and I don't think there is an easy solution to this problem. But first, people need to recognise that it is a problem. It is so cruel and inhumane.
I remember mentioning it to Mum one day, and she looked at me and said she wished I wouldn't talk about these things because they upset her. In many ways, I'm not in a position to complain about that because I still have milk in my coffee and tomato soup, and I eat cheese too.
Sometimes I think we should imagine if animals had reign over humans after we die. It would be interesting to see how they treat us. Below are the two calves from the Farmyard Nursery.
I'm not a rides girl, and I never go on them. But I took the opportunity to wander around side-show alley. I want to be a carney, traveling around the country with each show, with all the fairs and carnivals. I bet they all know each other, and there's probably a big community of them. I am in awe of them because they are the ultimate vagabonds.
As I marvelled at the carnies running the rides and enticing people to play their games, I bumped into some friends.
I love it when aliens are depicted like this. I personally think they would look a lot more like us than that. I mean, a lot more. I mean identical. I think if aliens exist, we have the potential to be carbon copies of them. And as my Ancient Aliens friends would say, we were created in their image.
These two were part of a ride called Alien Abduction. I think if I was going to go on a ride, it would be this one because it's the old Gravitron revamped. But even the aliens couldn't get me on this one.
After I finished wandering around the rides area, I made my way to the showbag hall. I decided to buy Hussein's children a whole stack of showbags because they don't ever get the opportunity to go to the show. I got six in total, which is two each, but when I went to buy the last showbag, my debit card was rejected. I thought that was weird, but then I got a text message saying the bank suspected fraud on my card because I had made so many transactions in a short period of time.
I paid with cash and then left the show to make the phone call to sort it out. It was incredibly annoying, particularly since I had to catch an Uber home and that is my only card. I spoke to the guy at the bank, who was really nice about it, and he said he would do something to make sure this didn't happen again.
I made it home safe and sound, and I am seeing Hussein tonight, so I will surprise his kids with the showbags.
You know, the show is actually quite expensive. For me to get in, it was $27, and for adults on the weekend, it is $33. Children are $16.50 Monday to Friday, and on the weekends, they are $20.50. A family of four is $63.50 Monday to Friday, and on Saturday and Sunday, it is $76. There are concessions and discounts online, and children under the age of five are free, but I don't think those prices are fair for families who are already struggling with the cost of living.
As well as that, the cost of rides, food, goods, and showbags makes the show an unrealistic option for so many families. And I know that because my friend Hussein can't afford to take his family. I would love to buy them a family pass, but he wouldn't like that.
The show is cruel to the animals, and it's also cruel to the people. An event like that should be available to everyone. It should be somewhere people can go to escape the worries of day-to-day life, many of which are financial. They should be free to give their children memories they won't forget by going on rides, indulging in the food, and buying showbags.
I would steer clear of the animals so as not to encourage their use in the event. But to put it simply, I think the show should be free. People pay enough to the carnies and other vendors, and the added expense of admission could be the difference between whether a family is able to go or not.
