Eating Giraffe: Cutting up moose with a 3-year-old

"Is that giraffe meat?"

-->

            A ten-pound hunk of moose meat and bone sat on a piece of cardboard in the middle of the dining room table as Myra began disassembling it.

            “Mom, is that giraffe meat?” Ellen asked while sitting down in a chair next to Myra.

            “No, this is part of the moose Uncle Walter shot,” Myra responded not sounding in the least phased by Ellen’s question.

            “Oh.  Do people eat giraffe?” she continued.

            “Huh, I don’t know,” Myra answered without taking her eyes from the meat she was cutting, “I guess so.”

            “Do you eat giraffe, Mom?”

            Myra put down her knife, but she still did not look up from her work, “No…”

            “Why not?” came out of Ellen’s mouth before Myra could even finish her sentence.

            Myra looked up at Ellen who seemed to be pondering very deeply, this, one of life’s big questions.  “Well, I have always thought that giraffes are too beautiful to shoot and eat.”

            “I’d eat giraffe,” Ellen said with conviction.

            Myra went back to work on the moose meat in front of her while both sat in silence for a moment and I got the vacuum packer set up to package the meat that was now off the bone. 

            “What do you think giraffe tastes like, Mom?” Ellen went back to her inquisition.

            “Wow, what is your dad doing?” Myra parried.  “Why don’t you see if you can help him?”

            “What are you doing, Dad?” Ellen asked excitedly running around the corner into the kitchen.

            “Here, come and push this button,” I pointed to the vacuum and seal button on the machine sitting in front of us on the counter.

            And, so we successfully got Ellen pushing buttons on a machine and away from pushing buttons on her mom.