"I have a wok and you haven't. Did you not see them?"
Given that this is a supermarket at two a.m. plus change, we figure she's been hitting the booze. My response is along the line of "Nah, I already have one."
"Ah. You've got a lot of meat."
"Yes. We're carnivores. We don't believe in cruelty to vegetables."
"Well, when you've got a position you've got to stick by it."
"At the top of the food chain. We didn't get here by biting cabbages, that's for sure."
"No, that's killer whales."
"But we've got harpoon guns. Swim, swim, swim, thunk. This whale's now got a big metal spike sticking right out of it's side. How many killer whales do that to us?"
We walked away, but the conversation between me and John turned to humankind's place at or near the top of the food chain. John posited that thanks to tools, it was feasible if not practical for us as a species to eat lions, alligators, man-eating sharks, and all other manner of rather dangerous steaks.
"But John, look at it like this. We've got to the point in our evolution where we can consider eating lions precisely because our ancestors, well, didn't try to eat lions."
"You have a point."
"I can see it now. Ug looks out over the plains, sees a lion. He turns to Ug. 'Ug, you see that big thing over there. The one with the impressive hairdo and the gazelle intestines dripping from it's jaws as it stands over the dismembered carcass of it's latest victim?' 'Yeah, I see it, so?' 'That's my breakfast.' 'Ug?' 'Yes, Ug?' 'You are off your fucking rocker you are.'"
The rest of our conversation on the way home was nowhere near as interesting.