“What do you mean, you ‘forgot the ham’? How can anybody forget a goddamned Christmas ham — ?”
“– Lower your voice. Please,” she dug a thumbnail into his palm. “I’ll figure something out. Meantime, you go tell your Aunt Rose to keep her twisted old fingers out of the freakin’ onion dip.” Then—“And for Chrissakes, be discreet.”
Ah Christmas, good to be home man, but this
parole thing sucks,
TW “faith” yah I got it.
Be discrete? Not at all, my good man. Much better to clump together in a single contiguous mass… if you can do it discreetly.
After all, Aunt Rose was quite well off, thanks to the money she’d inherited from her father’s
fortune built upon the his patent on the metal buckle found on most galoshes. And the six cans of Spam in the pantry to were about to be dusted off and put to good use.
Merry Christmas!
About these “sudden fiction” episodes….do these involve any convulsions, spasms, or periods of unconsciousness? Are they preceded by auras, odd sensations of odor or taste, or behavioral changes?
In short, should we be concerned about arranging medical attention?
That means sneaking up behind the old biddy and pushing her face-first into the candied yams is right out.
Unfortunately.
I say, screw the ham. I’m sick of ham. How about some Prime Rib? My mil is making ham for christmas eve – I’ll have to double up on the egg nog.
You gotta love those happy, no-pressure holidays.
Forget then ham. WTF is this with onion dip. Only the Christmas haters would serve onion dip for Christmas. ACLU brand onion dip I bet!
Lew,
The onion dip is for the fruitcake. Kills the taste, you know.
I have to agree with Nan on this one. Though honestly onion dip isn’t quite enough. Hell, who am I kidding? Road tar couldn’t cover the taste of a fruitcake.
I have a one word answer for the whole dilemma. Rum.
To kill fruitcake, after you drive a stake through its heart you need to smother it with an equally robust, kick-ass counterflavor. Personally, I find a nice roast garlic salsa or pico de gallo usually does the trick. Feliz Navidad, everybody.
I wouldn’t worry about Rose: the cat was into the dip twenty minutes ago. By the way, that iPod you bought for Skippy is lying in a snow drift in front of your house; you missed loading it into the trunk and it slid off the roof of your car as you drove away. But I think he wears about the same size socks as you do, so ya got that going for ya…..
Reindeer and onion dip….pshaw!
Red State Santas drive ‘69 Ford pickups and eat our chips DRY.
With a cold Bud. (Drink responsibly, Aunt Rose. You long-fingered freak.)
I once made the mistake of eating two bites of fruitcake, and, after ruling out several other possible causes, I thought it must have been laced with some kind of weaponized h. pylori, because it gave me the worst ulcer in the history of digestion.
After consulting uncountable gastroenterologists, I finally lucked into one who was a shadetree astrophysicist, and he informed me that this “ulcer” of mine is actually a black hole, and what seems to be acid reflux is instead a jet of deadly gamma radiation, such as one might observe shooting from the the center of a quasar.
Turns out, the average fruitcake has a density 100,000,000 times that of the hyper-compressed matter which makes up neutron stars, and mixing any more than a teaspoonful in the confined area of one’s stomach inevitably causes this kind of local spacetime collapse.
Don’t make the mistake I made. Be safe. One bite, smile, and flee. Onion dip won’t save you.
Boner, you cribbed that from a “Deep Space Nine” episode.
Or maybe it was “Hello, Larry.”
I forget.
“Forgot the ham”. Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
“Yo, Aunt Rose! In the kitchen, honey. They need your false teeth to put that lacy pattern on the pie crust.”
Ramadan rocks.
Well, I mean … no green-bean casserole!
I love fruitcake.
HOMOVORES!!!!
I refuse to totally give in, but I will admit, If I have one slot left on my Christmas dinner guest list and it’s the “fruitcake aunt” or the dude that brings a six pack of onion dip, I’m going with “Onion dip, what could make Christmas brighter?”
Pbbbbbbth! Ham is for Easter.
Alton Brown’s fruitcake recipe.