I’m not a Vegan. Nor a long-winded blogger, at least not this morning. But I am a sucker for plays on words. Hence the title. 

I’m also a sucker for opportunities to congregate with friends I’ve known since I was a jelly-headed 18 year-old. 

Even if said opportunities require a flight to the second-hand smoke capital of the world. Does anyone not have a cigarette or cigar dangling precariously from their lips or pinched between first and second fingers here? I’m an annoyingly militant anti-smoker, but I’m admittedly overrrun. So far outnumbered that I may scavenge a pack of Marlboros on the way to the hotel gym. Don’t want to stick out. And maybe the nicotine will take the edge off of my slightly hungover stair master session. This could be the beginning of a wonderful, new addiction! 

Even if said opportunities require skipping one afternoon of my beloved perch on a bucket of baseballs, flashing pitch calls between my knees to my Little League team’s catcher. Our catchers for tomorrow’s game are on their own, fastball and knuckle curve-wise. Still, I find myself sitting on the edge of my hotel room’s pull-out couch, gazing out the window over the expanse of The Strip, throwing 1 and 2 fingers and wiggling all three. Jonesing to call an outside fastball and revel in my battery’s imminent strikeout. High fives all around. 

Even if said opportunities require stifling my fear of long hotel corridors reminiscent of The Shining. Danny in a slobbering epileptic fit will come peeling around the corner on a Big Wheel any moment now. Those creepy twin girls in powder blue dresses will pop up and block me from my door, droning something in monotone. I’ve seen that movie waaay too many times to be cool with navigating this hotel corridor for the next couple nights. 

All of this I am happy to kick aside for a couple days in order to relive and rehash shared memories from three decades past. And just to tidy up this post, if I were a Vegan, I’d gladly eat and drink whatever Vegans are not supposed to eat and drink. Viva! Bring it on. 

Thanks for reading.