Posts Tagged ‘Spam’

The (very brief) Return Of Jasper The Renter

Friday, June 11th, 2010

By Tiber

As you may recall from my April post, “Not in Bruges,” Dad rented out a room up here on the third floor to an associate of a friend, who is here on business from Belgium.

His name is Jasper. And Jasper is such a nice person, I’m sure he felt that in coming to stay with such a big and active family as ours, rather than in a hotel, it would give him a real sense of home. The reality, of course, has probably made him want to drive at warp speed to the nearest family planning facility and donate all of his money.

On Jasper’s first night, we forgot to tell Aunt April he was staying here and, seeing him heading for the bathroom in the middle of the night, she went after him with a pitchfork. It bears repeating, how many people do you know who even have a pitchfork in their garage, much less in their bedroom?!?

Then, of course, Jasper accidentally witnessed the horror of the triplets on Easter morning, when they basically explode from the house in camo and ammo and conduct a scorched earth policy until they snag those eggs.

So because of these, and probably other events as well, Jasper has been coming downstairs for dinner less and less.

Dad, whose personality is even larger than, say, “expansive,” thinks Jasper is just shy. And Dad does not “get” shy. “Where’s the hell’s the fun in it?!?”

So he came up to Jasper’s bedroom and ordered, sorry, “invited” Jasper to come down for dinner tonight and enjoy a game of pool with him beforehand.

What we now think happened is that, since Jasper had been planning on snacking in his room, he’d had some Spam in his hand, which he then stuffed into his pocket when Dad coerced him downstairs.

They were in the billiard room under a minute when Dad’s two dogs came in and joyously yelped that it must be Christmas all over again!

Back in December, Dad had given us all the “gift” of a case of Spam, trying to get us to save money on food. Instead of eating it, however,  family members had just hidden their portions on and around the tree. The dogs were ecstatic, thinking the new Spam tree was the greatest present ever. And they dragged the whole thing, ornaments and all, outside for their own celebration.

And now, here was more Spam! And this time, it was hidden on this Jasper, who clearly was a 165 lb. Belgian doggie chew-toy!

Jasper took off, with the dogs right behind him and Dad calling out futilely, “They’re very gentle! They’re not going to hurt you!”

I don’t know, owners always say that but even if you had two large, perpetually hungry, out-of-control, pointy-toothed, slobber-spewing people coming after you, I think you’d run too.

Not a creature was stirring…except for the ones who stole our tree

Saturday, December 26th, 2009

 

By Tiber

We woke up on Christmas morning to find that not only were about half of the Christmas presents gone, but our entire tree had been stolen as well. In spite of the difficulty of breaking into this house, someone had obviously done it. We were all very depressed, until Dad, who’s seen the film, “A Christmas Story,” went over suddenly and smelled the dogs.

He then whirled around and accosted the rest of us.

“Do they have Spam breath?!?

They did, of course, It’s sort of hard to miss. Dad quickly hurried down the hall and soon, he spotted one of the missing gifts, along with a trail of pine needles. We followed along, finding more and more busted-up gift boxes along the way. And we saw that the Christmas tree had been dragged all the way down three hallways and then out the back door.

We rushed outside and there it was, sparkling in the winter sunlight, a little crooked but still standing, brightening up a formerly empty flower bed and providing food for the birds, who were excitedly pecking at the branches.

You see, once again, Dad had brought home more cases of Spam, trying to get us to spend less money on food and, once again, everyone in his family was trying to get rid of it.

Mom had stuffed hers into the gingerbread-house ornaments on the tree. My brother Duncan’s triplets – (I’ll write more about them later. Sometimes you save the best for last. This will not be one of those times) had taken some craft supplies that Grandma Noni had given them, plus what looked like toilet paper rolls and some doll parts and had built what can only be described as a Barbie rocket launcher. Late in the night, they had managed to shoot countless loaves of Spam across the length of the living room and impale them on the branches of the tree.

In my older post, “The Spam Tolls for Thee,” I wrote about how the last time Dad brought home cases of Spam, Duncan had crafted me a Spam girlfriend, declaring that she was bound to last longer than any of my real ones. Well, here she was again too, since Duncan had stuck her under the tree for me to find on Christmas morning, only to have her dragged outside when the dogs took the tree.

Of course, this only proved Duncan’s point further. She was now caught on the inside branches so the dogs weren’t able to get to her, proving once again that she’s still lasting longer than any of my real girlfriends.

The whole thing was a sight but, as it turned out, Dad decided that he loved the tree disappearing and then being found again outside, feeding the birds and reanimating the flower bed. He called it a Christmas miracle. Unfortunately, I think the real miracle is going to be if we can ever stop Dad from bringing home any more Spam.

The Spam tolls for thee

Monday, November 9th, 2009

By Tiber

If this isn’t a sure sign that Dad’s money may be dwindling, I don’t know what is. He came home today with a stack of cans of Spam and suggested it might be fun if we had an “Inventive Ways to Use Spam” contest. I think he probably had recipes in mind but with the contest participants being our family, the results ended up being a little more wide-ranging.

Duncan made a Spam girlfriend for me, saying she was bound to last a lot longer than any of my real ones. I was about to slam him, when I realized that, actually, that was true.

Iris Nell molded her Spam into the sweet animal she figured it came from, to shame anyone eating it, I guess. But it looked nothing like a pig or a cow or anything else in the natural world. Iris Nell will never be hired to be a Spam sculptor. It definitely put you off eating the final version, though, so I guess her goal was accomplished.

Even more disturbing than Iris Nell’s contribution, was Erin’s. She fashioned her Spam into a human arm and tattooed it using Worcestershire sauce. At least she said that’s what she used, so we’ll go with that.

Mom pretended to be innocently looking on to the proceedings with great interest but when she daintily crossed her ankles, I caught her shoving her own Spam under her chair with her heels. The dogs found it later and used it to play a really loud game of snout-hockey down the corridor.

Cook, who at least got the recipe part right, was too mortified to be seen serving Spam at all. So she “tarted it up a bit” with a black truffle, white wine dressing and served it on a bed of Belgian endive, making it the most expensive salad Dad had ever bought.