w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m
59
OLD BROKE RANCHER BY GARY SHELTON
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LOSE YOUR EYES AND IMAGINE THE SCENE: it's the fu-
ture. Somewhere sleek, ultramodern.
Bozeman, maybe.
In a shiny, chrome-plated kitchen, a man prepares to make
dinner. He heats up a skillet on the stove, pours himself a
beer, and gets out some salt and coarsely ground pepper.
Then he walks over to a potted plant in a corner. He plucks
something big and pink from one of the plant's limbs.
You look closer. No, it couldn't be! The object is a steak
but... grown from a plant!
Looking closer, you recognize with a shock that his drink
is a non-alcoholic beer!
Then, as the "man" cuts into his "steak," you realize with
mounting terror and disgust that the figure isn't a human at
all, but some kind of pod person composed entirely of soy.
You can open your eyes now. Now, I reckon that, depend-
ing on who you are, what I've just described is either the re-
alization of a dream or a nightmare.
What's my perspective on them? Well, I don't want to tip
my hand too early, so I'll keep my cards close to my vest by
only saying this: I'd rather eat a urinal cake made of cock-
roaches.
My aversion to the idea isn't ideological, ecological, or
even regular old logical. It's a feeling born in my gut, an or-
gan through which has passed more than my fair share of
hamburgers and steaks.
It just feels, well, wrong.
On top of that, I eke out a meager living raising cattle. Just
as I imagine the Mars Corporation must hope that M&Ms
never grow on trees, I have an investment in the continued
