#879 Bloodsuckers

The other day I was talking with a friend about the Wall Street collapse and he uttered one short disparaging term: Bloodsuckers.
And I thought as I often do, how does the other person feel? In this case, how do bloodsuckers feel? I didn’t really care that much, it was just my automatic empathetic response.
My mom always told me not to criticize people until you walked a mile in their shoes and as I honor my mother and am also a quite the critical person, I have walked a lot of miles.
But it really got me thinking about the poor bloodsuckers in nature. As Halloween approaches, we will once again be flooded with negative stories of vampires and vampire-like creatures. The Discovery Channel will shower us with tales of leeches and vampire bats and other animal bloodsuckers.
But aren’t they actually just carnivores who have found a way to get their protein more resourcefully? Who are we, who kill the whole animal just to feast on its bloody flesh, to criticize the remarkable efficiency of vampires?
Think about it. We go to all the trouble of raising a big cow. Herd him all over the place. Cut off his testicles so his meat will be more tender, feed him, fill him full of hormones, spend a ton of time and money on the poor beast and then kill him for a few red, dripping, bloody hunks of flesh.
What a waste of an investment.
Imagine if we did the same thing to milk cows for an udder full of milk. The Maasai warriors in Africa had a better method. They rarely butchered their cows. Instead, they drank their blood.
Rich in protein and vitamins, and a great way to make gravy, their nothing like a fresh liter of blood.
Vampire bats are smart animals. They’re the ultimate sustainable recyclers. They don’t drink all your blood, why kill the human that leaks the crimson leg... vessel.
If we get over our misguided squeamishness, we got a great industry here. Milk cows and blood cows, sustainable protein.
They could put the bottles of blood in the dairy section.
Right next to the clotted cream.
America, ya gotta love it.