Are Raccoons Part Of The Food Chain?

This is one of the few stories I’ve included here that I actually remember
EXACTLY when I wrote it. It’s off a letter to Chaosia, written when we were
dating, and I included the date on the letter… 3/29/93.

It happened at work. It was somewhere between one and two A.M., and I'd
called for relief. It was late, and I wanted a smoke break. When my position
was filled, I stepped outside the side door and lit up.

Raccoons are cute, but irritating; furry, bumbling little critters leading the
good life out of the dumpsters across from the cafeteria. They've learned that
plastic bags left on dorm porches often contain good things to eat, left over
from the meal trays brought out for the disciplinary cases. I understand that
some urban coons, when captured and given medical checks, have
developed some rather human medical problems: high blood pressure,
clogged arteries, and even a few cases of diabetes.

Here's my point:
Raccoons have an ugly sense of humor, and at night, when I go from one
building to another, I stay clear of the thickets and the main treeline; get too
close and an unseen 'coon may well decide to make a noise like Godzilla
getting kneed in the crotch, just to watch you jump.

I stood and smoked and watched a good-sized buck eat the lawn; for some
reason, the grounds out where I work are infested with deer; a night hardly
goes by where I don't see several, and when I have to go up the hill to do the
Xeroxing, I practically have to kick 'em out of the way... they're durn near
tame, too. When you walk towards them, they look at you as if to ask "I beg
your pardon? Can I help you?" in a persnickety tone of voice.

This particular one apparently felt safe enough fifty feet from me, but kept
giving me suspicious looks. It was a beautiful, serene moment, which
apparently bothered the 'coon hiding somewhere in the trees -- or perhaps
the little fellow was just having a personal problem. At any rate, he cut loose
with a shriek that would have done any horror movie actress proud.

The deer and I jumped a total of about ten feet in the air; the deer, apparently
having decided that I was the source of the offending sound, landed running,
pointed dead away from me. I laughed, partly because of the humor of the
situation, and partly to discharge the tension of having had the crap startled
out of me.

The deer had almost made it to the treeline when the 'coon did it again.
Perhaps he didn't like the buck charging at him. If so, it worked; the buck
jumped again, spun in midair, and landed running again ... this time pointed
right at my face.

It took me a few seconds to absorb the situation; by this time, the deer had
cut the distance to about forty feet and closing, and had lowered his head.
Bucks have antlers, you know, and rather pointy ones at that, and they can
move real fast when they wanna.

For a second, I was merely nonplussed --"Wait just a minute there, Mr. Deer, you've obviously forgotten our respective positions in the food chain," -- when it hit me: if I didn't do
something, I was going to wind up like a cocktail shrimp on a fork.

Absurdly, the first thing that ran through my mind was the Basic Procedures
Manual; unfortunately, the chapter on "Personnel Safety: Policies And
Procedures For Physical Holds, Take-Downs, Seclusions, and Disciplinary
Procedures" didn't have word one on pissed-off creatures of the forest, as far
as I could remember. It did occur to me that deer look real pretty when they
run.

Shit! What would Davy Crockett do in this situation?

Well, he probably wouldn't step inside and close the door, but I did.

The deer rammed it going full-tilt, making a sound not unlike a sack of dirty
laundry and bowling balls dropped onto a wood floor from a height.

Then silence.

It then occurred to me that I wasn't yet out of the woods, so to speak. What
was I supposed to do now? If I opened the door, he could be waiting outside,
and I could just see myself calling the Center Supervisory Office to report an
enraged ungulate roaming the halls.

On the other hand, I could just lock the door and do nothing, but the morning relief staff might be alarmed to arrive to find an unconscious or dead deer lying outside the door, and I'd be
responsible for explaining ... and either way, I'd end up as the butt of endless Bambi jokes from the C.S.O.

Then I noticed: I still had a lit cigarette in my hand. That clinched it: I had to
at least open the door a crack and get rid of the thing; the smoke alarms out
there are so sensitive they'll go off if you even lose your temper.

I leaned down and popped out the door brace; it'd keep the door from
opening more than a few inches, no matter what. Then I cracked the door,
flicked the butt out, and peeked.

The buck was several yards from the door, staggering unsteadily away. From
off and beyond the treeline, I heard a chittering sound that very much
resembled raucous raccoon laughter.

My memory buzzed and spat out a fragment of narration from Marlin Perkins' old Wild Kingdom TV show: "Man is, by far, the most dangerous animal in the forest."

Mentally, I added a footnote: don't bet on it.

Recipes: 3

Chicken every Sunday ... turkey on Thanksgiving ... wishing on a wishbone
... squabbling for the drumstick. If one or more of these isn't a part of your
family tradition, you must have grown up somewhere else!
-- from Betty Crocker's Cookbook, 1969 edition, distributed free w/purchase of a major appliance from Sears.

Did you know that some of the wild turkeys the Pilgrims hunted for the first
Thanksgiving were between fifty and sixty pounds? That amazed me when I
read it; I didn't think North America had edible fowl that big south of
Sesame Street. Even the domesticated kind you buy at the grocery can get up
to thirty pounds. This is why, in late November and early December, so
many meals across this great land are made up of a local dish called "holiday
leftovers", whose main ingredient is turkey.

My friend Troll thought about that, and he wondered why nobody ever
cooked turkey except for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Troll liked turkey
just fine, and he suspected that between himself and his two roommates,
twenty bucks would buy enough turkey to feed everyone for a couple of
weeks -- but not long enough for everyone to get sick of it.

I was one of those roommates, and listened to him wax eloquent about it. Troll's
girlfriend Bubbles happened to be in the room, and advised against it; her
mom had made turkey every Thanksgiving for years, and she had seen it to
be a humongous undertaking.

The Troll disagreed. "It's not that big a thing," he said, "if the Pilgrims could
do it without Teflon and microwaves. Your mom just thinks it's a big thing
because she has to cook, serve, and clean up after two dozen people every
November." With that, Troll promptly went out and bought a turkey. I don't
remember what season it was, but it was definitely not the holidays -- I'm
fairly sure it was, in fact, midsummer or so. Still, the stores had turkeys for
sale.

When he got home with the bird, he promptly yelled for me. "How do we
cook it?" he asked.

"Um," I replied. "How much does it weigh?"

Troll grinned. "Thirty pounds."

I stared at him for a minute. "Thirty pounds?"

"Biggest one I could find," he grinned. "Hey, I'm hungry!"

"Jesus Christ in a Bunny Suit... not too hungry, I hope," I said. "A turkey
takes a long time to cook -- especially a big one."

Troll's face fell. "How long?"

"For a family-size bird, about three, four hours," I said. "This one looks
more like a baby ostrich. You're looking at, like, five or six hours in the
oven."

Troll frowned. "Well, fine. We'll do it tomorrow, then."

"Suits me," I said.

The next morning, Troll asked over breakfast how soon I thought we should
start the turkey. "Do you have a roasting pan?" I responded.

Troll looked at me funny. "Roasting pan?"

"You know," I said. "It's a big sort of bathtub-shaped pot you put the turkey
in, about four or five inches deep--"

"Can't we just, like, wrap it in foil or something?"

"Not unless you want to start a fire," I said, pointing at the bird. "Rodan,
here, is full of ice and bird fat. Roasting him is going to make him sweat it
all out, big-time. Unless you feel like putting out the fire, throwing the
turkey away, and cleaning the oven, you want a roasting pan."

Troll responded with his favorite four-letter word, got his hat, and stormed
out the door. He returned a while later with a disposable aluminum turkey
pan and a folding roasting rack. "Will this do?" he growled.

"Did you check it for holes?" I asked. His eyes bugged a little; before he
could say anything, I said, "Put it under the faucet and run a few inches of
water in it. If it doesn't drip, it'll work." A gallon or so of water later, we
found that the pan was unperforated. Smiling again, Troll went and got the
turkey out of the fridge, to put it in the pan.

"Wait a minute," I said. "No way is that thing thawed yet."

"Huh?" said Troll. "It's been sitting in the fridge since yesterday afternoon!"

"Yeah, but that's a lot of bird. I'd leave it in the fridge another day or so."

"Dammit, Doc, if you'd just said something, I'd have left it in the sink--"

"--and given us all salmonella poisoning," I finished. "Better to let it thaw in
the fridge."

Troll scowled, then cooled. "All right," he said. "We'll cook it tomorrow."
He then glanced up at me and said, "We will cook it tomorrow, right? No
more thawing, no more pans, no Sacred Turkey Dance, or anything?"

"Not a reason in the world we can't have that bird for supper tomorrow," I
replied.

The next day, I made the mistake of asking if Troll had a meat thermometer.
Fortunately, I was able to tell him that we didn't exactly need to have one
before he caught me.

When he'd cooled off, we set up the roasting rack in the pan, set the turkey
on it, fired up the oven, stuck it in, and settled down to wait.

"How long?" Troll asked.

"Between seven and eight hours."

"Wow," he said, lighting a cigarette. "Is there anything we need to do
between now and then?"

"Well," I said, "You'll need to baste it."

"Baste?" he said, mystified.

"Every half hour or so, you open the oven door, dish up some of the juice in
the pan, and pour it back over and around the turkey. Keeps the meat juicy.
Ever had turkey that was too dry?"

"Oh, okay," he said, puffing on his cigarette. "Sounds like a plan. What do
you say we make an event of it?"

"Mmm?"

"Well, there's you, me, and Bobo. I can call Bubbles over, and Crazy Jane,
and ..."

Before long, the place was full of people. Well, not full -- no more than
seven, I'm sure. Still, we were all there, and before long Bobo broke out the
cards, and soon the Thanksgiving In July was in full swing. At length, I
retired to my room to study.

Until the smoke alarm went off.

I jumped; until then, I wasn't even aware that we had a smoke alarm. All
three of us were smokers, and between Bobo's cigars and the pipe I
sometimes smoked, the place had often been sort of opium-den'ish. Or at
least I thought so until I opened the bedroom door.

I couldn't see anything! It was as if someone had built a wall right outside
my bedroom door -- a wall covered with dirty gray cotton. The only thing
missing was a subtitle reading LONDON 1898. I could still hear the thin
electronic squeal of the smoke alarm, though. In the distance, I saw
movement, and heard a woman shout.

"Hey!" I yelled, my voice a little shaky. "Is the house on fire, or did Troll do
something weird with the turkey?"

From off in the distance, I heard the oven door clang open, followed by
Troll's favorite four-letter word. I took this as a sign of relative safety, and
strolled into the foggy evening. From the living room, I heard Bobo call my
name.

"Yeah?" I replied.

"Doc! Dammit! I'm getting the front door! Dammit! Troll's putting out the
bird! Dammit! You get the $*#&$%@ smoke alarm an' make it shut up!"

I tried, and collided with one of our guests. Together, we followed the sound
to its source. Working together, we managed to climb up, yank the thing off
the wall, fail to figure out how to turn it off or yank the battery, and finally,
we beat it to death with a baseball bat and a golf club. As we did so, the air
cleared, which helped us to see the thing as we took turns whacking it.

And, at the end, the turkey remained edible. It turned out Troll had gotten
tired of basting it, and in order to save time, he'd pulled the bird out,
removed the roasting rack, and set the turkey down directly in the pan,
partially immersed in its own juices. "That way," he thought, "it'll baste
itself while we play cards."

I explained to him while we ate that this should have made turkey soup, not
roast turkey -- and what started the fire?

"No fire," he said with his mouth full. Swallowing, he continued, "I
accidentally poked a little bitty hole in the pan when I put the turkey back in
it. It started a slow drip going, and when the puddle reached the heating
element in the bottom of the oven, it started to burn. No fire, just lots of
smoke."

"Incidentally saving the turkey from a soggy grave," I added.

"Nice smoky flavor, too," chuckled Bobo. "I have to admit, this is pretty
good. What did you stuff it with?"

"Huh?" said Troll.

"What did you make the stuffing with?" I rephrased.

"Huh?" said Troll.

"The stuffing, dipstick, the stuffing!" laughed Bobo. "What-did-you-stuff-the-
turkey-with?"
"Oh," said Troll. "I didn't have to stuff it. It wasn't empty."


Required:
A dead turkey (Chaosia showed me how some of these birds come with
little disposable meat thermometers where the red button pops up when it's
done; these are nice if you don't have a meat thermometer. Make sure the
bird is light enough to handle fairly easily and small enough to fit in your
oven)

A meat thermometer (not essential, but really, really handy)

A good-sized roasting pan, at least two inches deep, and more like four
inches. The disposable aluminum kind are nice for cleanup, but be warned
that they perforate pretty easily, which makes cleanup a lot more difficult,
depending on where and when you perforate...

Salt

Vegetable oil

Turkey baking bag (available in the same part of the store where you buy
boiling bags and sandwich bags)

Roasting rack (optional)

Required for stuffing:
2 8-oz. cans smoked oysters
and
3/4 cup minced onion
1-1/2 cups chopped celery
1 cup butter/margarine
8 cups soft bread cubes (or just run bread thru a cheese grater 'til you
have enough)
2 tsp. salt
1-1/2 tsp. crushed sage leaves
1 tsp. thyme leaves
1/2 tsp. pepper
or
1 box Stove Top Poultry stuffing (just get this and the oysters if you're
busy enough already)

Make the stuffing. If you're doing it the hard way, just fry the onions and
celery in the butter until tender; stir in half the bread. When the bread
absorbs all the butter, toss everything into a big bowl and add everything
else.

DON'T STUFF THE BIRD UNTIL JUST BEFORE ROASTING if
you're going to do it that way; I usually serve the stuffing on the side.
Take a couple of days to thaw the bird in the refrigerator if it's frozen; if
it's fresh, you'll want to cook him immediately. If there's a lot of fat hanging
loose, you'll want to trim it off.

Now comes the part Troll didn't do -- cut the thong binding the
drumsticks together and go prospecting inside the bird, making sure your
arm and hand are clean. Somewhere in there, you'll find the neck and giblets
(giblets are probably in a plastic bag these days). Rinse turkey, inside and
out. Note that if you don't do this, the bird will still be edible, but you're
probably up for a weird surprise when you carve it.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare baking bag as per directions
included with them. It's a good idea to throw a couple tablespoons of flour
in; it'll absorb excess moisture and prevent the bag from bursting if any air
pockets develop. If you're using a meat thermometer, plant it so the tip
should be in the thickest part of the breast or thigh muscle.

Rub the turkey with vegetable oil to prevent sticking; rub the inside with
salt, if you want (I have no idea why one should do this, but I've heard that
some folks swear by it). If you're going to stuff the bird, do it now.

Carefully maneuver Gobbles into his new home and seal the bag with the
ties included with the bag. NEVER use ordinary ties; the metal wire will
heat up and melt itself off the bag, and the paper wrapping is apt to catch
fire. Make sure none of the bag hangs over the edge of the pan, and try to see
that none of the bag is directly exposed to the heating elements at the bottom
of the oven. Cut six half-inch slits in the top of the bag, and put the bird in to
bake.

If you're not using a bag, you can do all this in the roasting pan. Make
sure you have a rack or something to keep the bird off the floor of the pan by
at least an inch. When the bird starts to get golden, throw a tent of aluminum
foil over him to keep him from getting too dark. Baste every half hour or so
with a ladle or giant-eyedropper-turkey-baster-lesbian-inseminator thingy.

Note that you won't need to baste it if you use a bag. Cooking times are as
follows for the bagged turkey:

TURKEY WEIGHT TIME TO COOK
12-16 lbs 2 to 2-1/2 hours
16-20 lbs 2-1/2 to 3 hours
20-25 lbs 3 to 3-1/2 hours
... and for the unbagged turkey...
12-16 lbs 3 to 3-1/2 hours
16-20 lbs 5-1/2 to 6-1/2
20-25 lbs 6-1/2 to 7 hours

The temperature on the thermometer should read about 180 degrees. Add
about a half hour to your times if the bird is stuffed. If he's stuffed, and the
point of the thermometer is in the stuffing, it should read around 160-165 or
so when it's done.

If you don't have a thermometer, test the meat about a half hour before
the chart above says it should be ready by pinching a drumstick; the meat
should be very soft.

When he's done, take him out of the oven and let him sit for fifteen
minutes or so. If the bag sticks, gently work it loose before removing the
bag. Note that the bag is not intended to be reusable. Note also that it's a
good idea to get the stuffing out of the turkey before you put it away for
leftovers -- it'll go bad before the turkey does, which is why I serve it on the
side.

Bon appetit!

When Furniture Attacks

It was the Eighties. It was that weird, in-between time right after the chaos
and insanity of the Seventies, and we didn't know exactly what we were
supposed to do. We really liked the idea of being Hippies, but we couldn't
because Reagan was president, but Just Say No and AIDS hadn't been
invented yet, so you still COULD be a hippie if you really wanted to, so I
decided to go out and try it...

I lived alone at the time, until Hannah showed up on my stoop.

Basically, Hannah had shown up on my stoop because she was pregnant, and
had realized that her boyfriend was a pig, and that once that baby was born,
she was stuck with him and nowhere else to go.

So she showed up at my place and asked if I could put her up for awhile
until she got on her feet again. I wasn't a pig. If I agreed to feed and house
her, I would do so, and she knew that. She offered to clean house and do
laundry, and even get a job, if she could find someone who would hire a 22-
year-old woman who was eight months pregnant.

Aw, what the hell, I never liked doing my own dishes anyway.

*****
The sleeping arrangements became a hassle right away. She took the couch,
and I slept in the bed. My bed. My twin-sized mattress-and-box-spring
combo with no frame, to be precise. I'm not huge, but I'm not small, either,
and I have wide shoulders, and the idea of supporting myself and one other
and sleeping on the couch did NOT appeal.

Three days later, I happened to wander into the living room at four in the
morning, and discovered that she had been building a nest on the floor; the
couch's angle and support were TOTALLY wrong for a pregnant woman,
and she was waking up in the middle of the night in dreadful pain. She
would then get up, build a nest on the floor, and sleep on that; it meant she
would wake up in pain again a couple hours later, but at least the pain would
be somewhere else. She would then move back onto the couch for a couple
hours. Back and forth, all night.

So I let her have the bed. That night, I discovered that that particular couch
was not really well suited to a good night's sleep to a non-pregnant male
person, either – I‘d fished it out of a dumpster during the Magic Time
between semesters, when dorms and apartments are clearing out, and one
can obtain plenty free furniture if one isn‘t too choosy… and I hadn‘t been.
It was a fine couch for parking and watching TV, but not for a decent night‘s
sleep.

...so we wound up sharing the bed. This led to some interesting
permutations. We could both sleep in the bed; neither of us was that huge --
but on Night One, I woke up in the middle of the night with her butt firmly
lodged in my crotch. My crotch, of course, had no problem with this, and in
fact was fully active and approving of the situation. I lay there for what
seemed like HOURS, thinking about dead puppies and train wrecks, hoping
that my crotch would shut up and sit down before she woke up...

...and the following night, she reported that she woke up in the middle of the
night with her butt firmly lodged in my crotch, and my hand around her right
breast. She lay there for what seemed like HOURS, wondering if she was
about to be raped or something, until she realized I was gently snoring in
her ear. I'd simply rolled over and draped my arm around her, that was all. I
was out cold.

The morning after that, I learned about morning sickness, and why one
should never get in the way of a pregnant woman, first thing in the morning.

I was very glad SHE agreed to do the laundry...

We were reasonable, mature, and forgiving people. By the end of the week,
we were still able to live together in one bed... but we agreed that a bigger
bed would be good.

So I went out and bought a waterbed.
There was a place in San Antonio that was selling king-sized waterbeds for
$100, which was a fantastic deal even back in 1984. There didn't seem to be
anything wrong with it, and the salesman swore that the boxed model was
identical to the display model in every way, except that mine wouldn't come
with sheets and blankets.

You know, putting together a waterbed is really a major construction
project... you have to put together this big giant wood pedestal thing... and
then you have to put together this big giant wood open-topped box thing that
sits on TOP of the pedestal... and THEN you put this gigaaaantic clear blue
baggie in the open-topped box, right? And then you run the garden hose in
the window, hook it up... and watch it go.

Watching it go can take quite some time. It took HOURS for that thing to fill
up. It finally did, though, and I had myself a really huge king-sized
waterbed.

The first thing Hannah and I did was to do like the couple in the TV
commercials, where they get on either side of the bed and fling themselves
into the bed, right?

We discovered this isn't the brightest idea in the world; this particular
waterbed wasn't waveless, and it promptly flung us upward again,
continuing along our previous vector, and we plowed into each other in
midair directly over the middle of the bed.

It was painful, but it was an excellent demonstration of Newtonian physics,
right?

I also learned about the aphrodisiac effects of waterbeds on women.
Water beds take some getting used to. I learned that you can build up a
FEROCIOUS rhythm on a waterbed, because everything you do, the bed
does back at you a half-beat later... which makes STOPPING kind of an
interesting experience, too. If you've never done this kind of thing, I highly
recommend it.

It had its down side, though. I spent my first several nights on the thing
suddenly waking up and grabbing the bed, because I'd try to roll over in my
sleep, feel the bed MOVE under me, and wake up in a panic...

Now here's the thing: the room wasn't big enough to put the bed in the
middle of it. I'd had to put the bed in the corner to have any space at all
along the rear wall. This meant that only ONE of us could have an outside
edge to the bed, right?

Remember what I said about morning sickness? HANNAH got the outside
edge, and more power to her. This had led to a hysterical situation earlier
that week when she'd woken, felt that familiar "whoopsy" feeling, and tried
to get out of bed and go to the bathroom... only to realize that it is extremely
difficult for a very pregnant woman to get out of a waterbed in a hurry.

Think about it...

I'd heard the ruckus from the kitchen, and came in to see what was wrong,
and witnessed the spectacle of a pregnant woman frantically trying to get the
bed to stop moving long enough to grab the bumper bar on the edge and
lever herself out of the bed. She wasn't doing a very good job.

Hell, I didn't know she was sick. I laughed. This led her to begin roundly
cursing me while she attempted to wrestle the bed into submission, which
just made the whole thing funnier. I stepped forward to help, and she took a
swing at me, which made the bed go off and wobbling again, which made
her lose her grip on the bumper bar...

She was so mad at me she forgot to be sick.

I should have taken this as an omen of things to come.

It happened a week or ten days or so after we'd began sleeping in the thing...
and it began with my usual 4 a.m. bathroom stop. Upon returning to the
bedroom, I moved to the foot of the bed to get in, right? Wasn't going
to climb over Hannah, after all. This had become routine to the point where
she didn't even wake up when the bed moved when I got back in.

I put my foot on the footboard, and stepped up...

...and the footboard came off with a loud PONK noise.

...and my foot shot out from under me, and I went face down into the
mattress.

Hannah woke up and went, "Huh--"

...and without the footboard there, there was nothing holding the mattress in
the big open-topped box. Furthermore, there was something heavy on the
end where the box was open. Me.

...and in just under two seconds, a half ton of giant blue vinyl water balloon
abruptly rolled over me like The Blob.

I had been on one end of the mattress. Hannah had been on the other. She
hadn't moved. The mattress had simply relocated, with her on it. Instead of
being up near the end, she was now in the exact middle. So was I, for that
matter... I think.

It had been so sudden, I wasn't even sure where the edge of the mattress was.
I didn't know where ANYTHING was, except the floor, the mattress, and
my girlfriend's butt (it was resting on one of my knees).

About then, it occurred to me that my face was covered with vinyl, and
weighted down with a half ton of water. I couldn't breathe.

I lifted my arm to push the waterbed upward, to get some space between the
plastic, and my face. Oh, wait, no I didn't. I couldn't lift a half ton of water. I
laid there very much like a gingerbread man under a ziplock baggie full of
gravy.

Except, of course, the gingerbread man doesn't need to breathe. It occurred
to me that this could quickly become a problem...

I felt Hannah get off my knee, and struggle off the waterbed. I needed to tell
her to roll the bed off me so I could breathe. How was I going to do that? I
pondered that for a second or so...

...and then, fresh air. She'd realized the same thing I had, and tried. She
couldn't budge the mattress any more than I could, but had managed to jam
her arm under the thing, trying to find me, and had opened an air channel.
Air!

"DON'T TAKE YOUR ARM OUT!" I said, calmly and patiently.

"I'm gonna call the fire department!!!" she shrieked.

"NO!"

"I'm gonna call the fire department!"

"NO!"

"I'm gonna call -- why not?"

"Because in the time it takes you to get through on 911," I said, "I'm not
going to be able to get any air. By the time you finally get through, you
might as well be calling a funeral home."

"BUT WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO?!?!?"

"Just keep your arm where it is, so I can breathe. I can get out from under
here."

"The HELL you can! You can't lift all that!"

"Don't have to," I grunted, wiggling slightly towards her. She promptly
poked me in the eye with a fingernail.

It took me an hour and forty minutes to flex, press, wiggle, flex, press,
wiggle, lather, rinse and repeat my way out from under that half-ton
deathtrap... an inch at a time... until finally, I had enough of me out from
under the thing to just pull free. Thank ghod for hardwood floors; I might
not have survived that much rug burn.

I spent the first half hour of that time arguing with Hannah, who VERY
BADLY wanted to call the fire department.

I finally convinced her that I would certainly suffocate in the time it took her
to get 911 on the horn, and she finally shut up and let me do it myself. A
good thing she was kind of panicky; it never occurred to her that the phone
was cordless... and back then, I still had a fair supply of macho to deal
with... and I was TERRIFIED at the idea of ANYONE ever finding out I'd
almost been killed by my own bed...

...plus, I'm quite sure that at some point, it would occur to her that she
couldn't greet firemen at the front door while stark naked... and I was quite
sure I'd suffocate before she could manage to get DRESSED to let them in...

Road Testing

Recently, I had cause to remember an incident from my childhood. Well,
adolescence, anyway. I would have been around fifteen or sixteen, and got
into an argument with my friends about the maximum possible speed of a
grocery cart. After several hours (and consumption of considerable beer), we
concluded that the only way to find out for certain was to test the hypothesis.

This led to several of us pushing each other around in grocery carts in the
parking lot of the local grocery store at 1 a.m. After a half hour or so of this,
we concluded that drunk people couldn't really push grocery carts fast
enough to really challenge the chassis. An external power source was
required.

We got hold of fifty feet of rope and tied a grocery cart to the back of
Loopy's pickup for towing. The first field test showed that grocery carts will
easily flip at under fifteen miles an hour or so when they hit a bump.

This set off another argument. Lightnin' concluded that grocery carts simply
weren't meant to go very fast, whereas Candy argued that a laden grocery
cart would be far more stable. This, of course, meant that someone would
have to ride in the thing in order to test the new theory.

Lightnin', of course, felt that Candy should have the honor, whereas Loopy
was more than willing to do it himself. I wasn't that drunk, and declined. It
was Weeble (who wobbled, but didn't fall down) that noticed the big stack of
bags of fertilizer outside the grocery store. Surely, there was a safer way of
weighing down a grocery cart...?

We promptly loaded 150 pounds, three bags, into the cart (there was again
some argument as to precisely how much should be used) and hit the
highway.

Oddly enough, grocery carts handle remarkably well at high speeds. They
aren't aerodynamic, but their metal mesh construction minimizes wind
resistance and effects. Unfortunately, their extremely low wheelbase and
lack of shock absorption more than makes up for this; we increased speed in
increments of five miles an hour, and the cart totally lost it at 45 mph.

We also learned that fifty-pound bags of fertilizer all but vaporize when they
hit pavement at 45 mph. Everyone looked at Loopy, who shrugged. The
grocery cart was completely intact, though, although its plastic handle cover
had shattered at some point.

Loopy and Weeble felt that the point had been made, and that more beer
should be obtained. Candy, Lightnin', and I, though, agreed that one road
test did not a theory make. The test should be repeated at least twice more,
preferably with a couple of different carts to change the variables, and the
results observed and recorded.

We compromised, and went back for more carts and fertilizer after obtaining
another case of beer.

We must have destroyed thirty bags of fertilizer, and we rendered at least
one shopping cart completely FUBAR. We learned that the redline velocity
for a shopping cart carrying 150 lbs. of dead weight is around 40-45 mph,
though; the fastest we ever got one going was 50 mph, and they ALWAYS
ate it as soon as they hit any kind of bump or crack in the road at that speed.
Testing was facilitated by Loopy's obsession with getting one up to the
highway speed limit before it flipped. We never did, but not for lack of
trying.

The experiment ended shortly before dawn. We still had beer left, and were
more than willing to keep going, but it was then that, during the last road
test, Loopy slammed on the brakes at 40 mph to avoid hitting a skunk.

The cart, on the other hand, had no brakes. It hit the tailgate going 40 and
flipped totally over the top of the pickup. One of the bags of fertilizer flew
out and slapped Candy to the back of the cab, knocking him cold (although
we weren't sure he was conscious before the fertilizer landed on him; he had
had quite a bit to drink, and was something of a lightweight). One of the
other bags hit the hood and exploded, covering the windshield with dirt.
The third didn't quite land on the skunk. It would have been better for
Loopy's truck if it had, though. Startled skunks aren't good company.

We pulled over to assess the damage and tend the wounded. Candy was all
right, although he had to spit out a mouthful of fertilizer to tell us so. No one
else was hurt. The back of the cab was dented where Candy's head had hit it.
The front of the hood was dented where the fertilizer had hit it. The whole
truck was redolent of the skunk's opinion. The skunk was fine, by the way;
I'd seen him jump, spin, spray, and run like hell (almost all simultaneously)
when the bag of fertilizer exploded next to him.

The shopping cart looked like an art collaboration between Picasso and M.C.
Escher.

Loopy was madder than hell about his truck. The dents didn't bother him; he
considered them badges of honor -- but the stench of skunk irritated him no
end. "I shooda just ran the fucker down," he growled. Lightnin' consoled him
with the fact that the skunk was covered with fertilizer, and therefore
probably felt much the same way; after all, that skunk wasn't going to be
very popular with the other skunks, smelling of cowshit, now, was he?
...and after we peeled Loopy off of Lightnin', we decided that the experiment
was at an end. It was almost dawn, after all.

...and now, I am old, and I go no more drunkenly roving into the night,
which is probably a good thing. This stunt wouldn't work these days;
grocery stores and department stores have video cameras staring at the
parking lot all night, and certainly someone would have thought to check
them after noticing the near-disappearance of a huge pile of fertilizer bags...
and if that hadn't tipped them off, the badly bent shopping cart would have.

Sure, we took it back. We were good boys.

...and sure, some of you are staring in horror at this testament... thinking
about your own teenage boys, or the fact that they can get up to such
devilment... but it also occurs to me that while we did get up to this kind of
devilment and worse, none of us ever shot up a school... is there a
connection, y'think?

The Easter Bunny War

I remember one fine April day way back when where the time change and Easter fell in the same weekend.

I'll never forget that morning. I was working in a psychiatric hospital, right? We had a new kid on the unit, big honkin' kid, big enough to eat apples off my head and strong enough to pick me up so he didn't have to bend over to get them.

Severe brain damage, due to inhalant abuse, fetal alcohol syndrome, and ghod knew what else. Mind of a six-year-old. Sexually abused by Mom. Total snake pit of a situation. Oh, and he'd been taken from his lovin' mommy and locked up in my facility the Saturday before Easter morning. Peachy, huh?

He must have woke up five times that night to come out and ask me "Is he here yet?" I had no idea what he was talking about, so I told him, "No." I tried asking who he was talking about, but he didn't wanna. He'd just go hit the restroom and go back to bed.

Nine hour shift. Was SUPPOSED to be ten hours, but remember, that time change -- gotta set the clock ahead an hour, promptly at two AM. Dead on my ass. Breakfast was being served on the unit, so the kitchen crew can beat it and go be with their families by sunrise. The night crew delivered the sixteen warm styrofoam containers filled with bacon, eggs, pancakes, syrup, and such, and I carried them in and left them on the big table in the TV room. My eyes felt like peeled onions. I wanted to go home REAL bad.

...and at six-forty-five, fifteen minutes before the end of an eleven-hour-shift, that giant fucking child wandered out and asked if "he" was here yet. I said, "No. Who are you talking about? I don't understand what you mean."

He wandered out into the hall... and began crying. "He didn't COME," he bawled. "HE DIDN'T COME TO THIS PLACE!!!"

About then, I realized that this monstrous infant was talking about the Easter Bunny.
I had no idea what to say. I spoke soothing nonsense, trying to calm him down, trying to maneuver him back to bed, or at least towards the seclusion room, where he could scream his ass off all morning without waking anyone up. It almost worked... until he saw the lights on in the day room, and suddenly stormed in there, looking for his "bass-kut."

And he saw the sixteen styrofoam containers stacked neatly on the table. He immediately ran towards them, making weird noises (imagine Ernest Borgnine trying to weep and giggle at the same time, and you'll have a general idea of what he sounded like) and began tearing the containers open, looking for chocolate eggs. When each container was revealed to hold only pancakes or scrambled eggs, he'd fling it aside. I promptly hit the panic button, and moved to intercept, seizing his arm and trying to explain that he shouldn't throw people's breakfast around.

As the fourth styrofoam tray hit the wall, scattering scrambled eggs and drooling syrup down the wall onto the couch.... the monster boy seemed to really NOTICE me for the first time. He began thinking aloud.

"This place is LOCKED," he said. "Cain't get OUT. Earbuddy cain't get IN. EARBUDDY CAIN'T GET IN!" he screamed. "YOU DINT LET THE EARBUDDY IN, DID YOU?"

"Uh," I said. My hand was still on his arm, which had suddenly grown quite stiff and still, and had suddenly increased in circumference about four inches. It was really pretty impressive to watch.

"YOU WOODEN LET THE EARBUDDY IN!" he bellowed, like a petulant bulldozer. "EARBUDDY PROLLY CAME HERE, BUT YOU WOODEN LET HIM IN!!!"
And at that point, the boy tried to kill me.

He swung. I dodged. His fist literally took a chunk out of the wooden molding on the wall. I noticed his fist was bleeding on the backswing; he'd split a knuckle. He didn't seem to notice. He simply began winding up for another swing.

Fortunately, the kid wasn't a fighter. He was simply quite big, and remarkably strong, and utterly enraged. He telegraphed his punches to the point where I could see them coming, whole seconds before they got anywhere. As long as he didn't get me cornered, I was safe as could be.

Well, relatively speaking. His third swing missed me, and left a dent in a cinderblock wall. His fourth attack, a wild kick, missed me, but clipped the big table, sending it spinning into the TV set, and scattering everyone's breakfast. The air was suddenly full of pancakes and fluffy yellow scrambled eggs like frightened clouds, and syrup hit the big reinforced plexi window like dewy brown rain.

Looking past the kid, I noticed that several of my other patients were awake and standing agog in the hallway door, mouths hanging open. One of them immediately pelted down the hallway to the main unit; likely, to get the hazard team. Say, where the hell WAS the hazard team? How long ago HAD I hit the panic button?

The boy swung again, I feinted and ducked, and he hit the cinderblock wall hard enough that I felt it in the soles of my feet.

This shit had gone on long enough. Hazard team or no hazard team, I HAD to do SOMETHING, if only for the KID's sake... by now, both his fists were bleeding, and the bare foot he'd kicked the table with seemed to have lost a toenail, and was gory to the ankle. And ghod help us all if he saw those dips standing in the hallway door and decided that THEY'd scared the Easter Bunny off. I moved in, and when he tried to grab me, ducked, sidestepped, and armlocked him.

It was the only time I've ever used that trick that it didn't work.

Usually, you armlock someone, you pretty much take control of their right arm (or left, if that's their dominant arm). Most people get bumfuzzled by this, and even if they're still trying to kill you, they can't really get AT you very effectively, and they can't GO anywhere while you're pinning their arm and keeping them from moving.

He simply kept trying to kill me. When he moved, my feet abruptly left the floor.

This shocked me. Badly. At the time, I stood six foot nothin', and weighed in at about 220 pounds. NOBODY picks me up and moves me without at least STRAINING for a moment. THIS kid hadn't even noticed that he was CARRYING me!

He simply kept moving to intercept me. He couldn't use his right ARM, because I had it LOCKED on him, but that didn't seem to bother him. He simply began trying to get me with his LEFT fist.

This presented a problem for him, since he had to attack across his right shoulder with his left fist to hit me. He didn't worry about that. He simply began moving to try to CATCH me. Since he was carrying me, this meant he was literally running in a little circle in the middle of the day room, WEARING me on his shoulder, as if I were a stuffed toy or something.

Like a dog chasing its tail.

I was frickin' horrified. The kid was moving fast enough that if I simply let go, there was no guarantee that I'd be able to hit the ground running. If I stumbled or fell, I was quite utterly fucked; this boy would kill me without even meaning to or trying very hard, I was sure.
So I bobbed my head back and forth, dodging his lefty-punches, kept his right arm immobilized, and hung on for dear life.

And Dooley and the Hazard Team came storming in through two different doors. Rescue!

Dooley, the nursing supervisor at the time, blinked twice, and just stood there for a minute. I can see why; I'm sure that we must have made quite a picture.

Dooley was a by-the-book kind of guy, though, and he didn't stay stunned long. The book only allowed for three seconds, max, of outrage or total surprise. "Johnny," he said, gently but firmly, "What's going on? Is there something wrong, here?"

Ah, Johnny, that was the kid's name. I'd forgotten. It was all the help Dooley managed to render, though. The kid, Johnny, didn't even slow down in his singleminded pursuit of the evil Easter Bunny killer. He simply extended his left arm in passing, and clotheslined Dooley in a manner that would have done any NFL quarterback proud, even if had cost him a dozen penalty flags and a suspension.

The rest of the Hazard Team blinked twice. Then they dropped low and came in.

Within four seconds, we had Johnny restrained, and the guys who wouldn't fit on his prone screaming body were running to get the jacket and gurney. I'm proud to say I was able to keep control of Johnny's right arm throughout the entire ordeal, although he did manage to get a grip on my forearm with his right hand and squeezed hard enough that I felt the bones creak.

The Med Team arrived shortly afterwards, but we still had to restrain Johnny while they checked Dooley first, to see if he was still alive. He'd literally bounced off the wall when the kid had cold-cocked him. Got a concussion out of the deal, as I recall. Shortly thereafter, thorazine was administered, and within fifteen minutes or so, the kid was groggy enough that we were able to get him into the jacket, and onto the gurney, and off to the seclusion area, still screaming about the "earbuddy."

It was 7:10 in the morning.

By the time I'd arranged for more food for my boys and filled out all the paperwork, it was 9:45. The day supervisor thought I should organize a cleanup for the spilled mess, since it HAD happened on my shift, technically, before I left. I asked him if HE'D authorize the extra overtime beyond what I'd needed to do the paperwork, though, and he decided maybe someone else could do it.

And I left. A thirteen hour shift, including fistfight, foodfight, and all.

And sure enough, the following week, on payday, they'd remembered my overtime, but they'd forgotten all ABOUT that missing hour from daylight savings time...

Chicken and Chocolate: An Easter Story

The Easter toys are in the stores now. I bought a little plastic chicken the other day. It came equipped with a bunch of little plastic eggs; when you push down on the chicken's back, it flaps its little plastic wings and lays a plastic egg. It's not good to think about how you have to get the eggs in there in the first place.

Why did I buy this plastic chicken toy? To commemorate a memory. My late grandfather was terribly fond of little plastic gewgaws, and used his grandchildren as an excuse to buy them -- and yes, he always gave them to us to keep after he'd played with them for a few minutes. The guy was vice-president of a bank; he had to hang on to some dignity.

Anyway, one Easter, he took us out and bought all sorts of Easter toys. I believe the year was 1971 or so; I would have been around seven, and my sister was around two. Her big thing that year was an inflatable Easter rabbit that was bigger than she was. My great joy was the Aurora dinosaur models. Still, I remember that silly plastic chicken...

It didn't lay plastic eggs; instead it came with some gumballs you were supposed to stick up its ass, then push down on the chicken's back to make her lay "gumball eggs". I did, and gobbled them down as fast as she laid them. Eventually, there were no gumball eggs, and I experimented with other small egg-shaped objects, including jellybeans and chocolate balls. Eventually, I lost interest and went in to assemble my Pterodactyl (with optional Battle-Damaged Wing) and made it soar menacingly across my grandparents' living room...

It was still Easter. We'd been up hunting eggs by 7 a.m., breakfast by 8, rolling in toys and candy by 9, and by late afternoon, I was bored. My pterodactyl had attacked and eaten entire tribes of imaginary cavemen by that time; I was terribly interested in seeing how he'd come out against my Allosaurus, but that model was back home; a grudge match would have to wait. What to do?

That was when I remembered the chicken. Make it lay some more eggs to eat. I began looking for the chicken, which was nowhere to be found -- until I remembered it was out on the patio. I trotted outside and discovered all the adults sitting around in lawn chairs making adult-talk; nothing to concern me. I looked around, spotted my chicken, still sitting next to my Easter basket...

(At this point, I feel obligated to point out that the geographic location was deep south Texas -- some forty miles east of the Mexican border, on the northern part of the Rio Grande Valley. They call the place the "Winter Garden" because of its short, mild winters. My point here is that although it was barely spring, it was hot by early spring standards...)

I ran over and picked up the chicken. Ahh, plenty of heft -- no need to load it. I put its little orange feet on the pavement and pushed down on its back.

Nothing happened. Instead of the brisk clickelick of the spring mechanism unloading an egg, I got silence -- and a feel of mushy resistance. I frowned, perplexed. No jellybean? I let up, let the mechanism relax, then pushed again. Nothing happened. Irritated, I pushed harder.
It seemed that I'd left the thing loaded with those little chocolate balls, not the jellybeans. Chocolate balls. In the hot sun, all afternoon. A wonder the ants hadn't found it. Anyway, the chocolate hadn't had enough time to melt, per se -- not really hot enough -- but it had softened pretty well, not enough to leak out, but soft enough to be forced out under the proper circumstances. When I pushed down, the chicken finally excreted a thin tailing that, upon reaching the pavement, coiled brownly up in a little pile, like--

I was completely blown away. Here I'd just expected that a jellybean egg was stuck in the chicken's clockwork bowels, only to discover that my plastic poultry could produce a plurality of biological functions.

"Hey, NEAT!" I cried gleefully. "My chicken just POOPED!"

All four adults sharing the patio with me abruptly looked up from their conversation. I noticed this, and mistook it for interest. I put the chicken down again and pushed; it obligingly repeated the phenomenon. "Didja see?" I cried. "Didja see?"

Looking back through my memories through a child's eye, the expressions on their faces still kind of amuse me. My grandmother's face indicated that her entire brain just kind of locked up on her from sheer shock. My father, on the other hand, had his mouth hanging open and looked kind of like he wanted to laugh, but was wondering whether or not he should swat me for appearances' sake. Mom got a firm set to her jaw and glared at my grandfather -- (did YOU buy him that thing?), and Gran'ther looked most confused of all -- partly amused, partly shocked, and partly like the captain of the Exxon Valdez preparing to meet with the press --"Well, it wasn't supposed to do that..."

I can correctly interpret these expressions only now, as an adult. As a child, at the time, I simply assumed that they were as blown away by the magic of the phenomenon as I was -- as if Pinocchio had become a real boy, or the Tin Man of Oz had suddenly needed to take a leak or something. Merrily, I proceeded to hop my little plastic chicken around the pavement, leaving little piles of confectionary crap in its wake. Just as the adults were regaining the power of speech, it occurred to my sister, who was sitting nearby, that the chicken's leavings ... were edible.

I leave it to your imagination what the reaction was by the Old People to a cute bediapered infant happily scooping up and sampling ersatz chicken turds.

I was not punished. Upon explanation, it became clear that I had not planned the event, didn't know any better, and wasn't even exactly clear on what all the foofaraw was about. My sister and I were washed (a little too vigorously; milk chocolate comes off skin fairly easily), as was the chicken; when it was dry, I got it back, along with the rest of the jellybeans. The chocolate, I was told, was no good; ants had gotten into it, and let this be a lesson about leaving your things outside.

I knew, of course, that there were no ants in the chocolate, but I kept silent; I was young, but not stupid. Chalk it up, I decided, to the weirdness that creeps in during the metamorphosis from child to grownup as the brain petrifies. No telling what their problem was. I mean, even the baby knew it wasn't real poop...

Ever since I first published this story, back around 2000, people have been sending me little plastic animals that crap. It astonishes me that there are so many of them for sale these days...

Recipes: III (aka Blazing Chickens)

The night I met Dorf, aka the Gorilla, sticks out in my mind.

I'd met his roommate, Max, at the place I worked at the time, and Max had suggested we all get together for dinner. He mentioned that his roommate would make dinner, and since everyone had heard about my insane videotape collection, perhaps I could bring some videos?

It sounded good to me. About then... the phone rang.

I picked it up. A crazy high pitched voice screamed and jibbered at me. I recognized Max's name though. "It's for you... I think," I said, handing Max the phone.

Max looked at me funny, and took the phone. He listened for a minute, and his face showed shock. "Holy CRAP!" he cried. "That was Gorilla! My house is on fire! We've got to get over there, NOW!"

And Max ran out the door.

I followed, stopping to lock the front door, and to ponder why Max had a gorilla, and how it had gotten my phone number. No one had bothered to inform me, yet, about Dorf's nickname.

We ran through the darkened evening streets. In the distance, I heard sirens, of fire engines to come. Max was a skinny little bugger, and I had to run hard to keep him in sight. Fortunately, he didn't live more than a few blocks from my place. He ran into a complex of apartment buildings, and into a little breezeway between two buildings... and stopped cold.

When I caught up with him, I saw why. The pavement was covered with broken glass. This one apartment faced into the breezeway, and the two large windows flanking the front door had blown out. Max stood there in shock. Plainly, this was his apartment. Cautiously, I stepped into the breezeway. The front door was standing wide open, which may have saved it from being blasted off the hinges.

About then, a hairy man wearing a towel ran out into the breezeway. "Max!" he cried. "It's okay! It's all right! I-- YEAAARGH!"

Seizing his foot, he hopped backwards into the apartment. He was barefoot. I guess he hadn't noticed all the broken glass.

Max and I cautiously stepped forward, and peered into the open window. The apartment did not appear to be on fire. Nothing was burning. There were no soot marks or black smears, or anything to indicate that it had been on fire. I noticed the aquarium sitting on the breakfast bar was shattered, though. I also didn't see any gorilla. I did smell a strong odor of burnt hair, though. Was that it? Had they been meaning to serve the gorilla for dinner, and it had somehow managed to escape? That still didn't explain how it had gotten my phone number, though...

Meanwhile, the hairy man continued to hop around the living room holding his foot. His towel fell off. He was naked. He fell down behind the couch, and I saw him no longer.

About then, the fire department showed up. It seems someone had reported a fire. Did we know anything about it?

Max and I couldn't tell them anything.

About then, the hairy man emerged from behind the couch, firmly wrapped in his towel again, and limping slightly. Yes, he was the one who'd reported the fire. He was also the one who'd called my house.

Meanwhile, the firemen, in full firefighting gear, had spread through the apartment, looking for signs of fire. One noticed that one wall of the kitchen had scorch marks on it. He also noticed a twisted cylindrical thing on the kitchen floor. It looked like an exploded bombshell to me. What the %$#@ HAD these crazy people been meaning to serve me for supper?

About then, the hairy man began to explain himself... and the story fell into place:
*************************************************************
Gorilla had set up a dinner date with his girlfriend and his roommate that evening. His roommate had mentioned that he worked with this guy who had every videotape ever released, and what say we invite him, and ask him to bring some videos? Gorilla was agreeable, and Max had set out on foot to my place. Meanwhile, Gorilla had showered, and begun dinner.

Dinner was a sort of open faced sandwich thing with chicken breasts and molten mozzerella that Gorilla called "Atomic Chicken". It involved careful baking at medium temperatures. Gorilla was running back and forth between the kitchen and the bathroom, dressed only in his Fruit Of The Looms, trying to get cleaned and shaved and coiffed and make dinner at the same time. At one point, he was shaving himself by the reflection in the chrome parts of the stove. Kitchen utensils and hygiene supplies were scattered throughout the kitchen. He put on a pot of green beans to cook, and then went back to the bathroom to find his toothbrush.

While he was in there, he heard an explosion in the kitchen.

He ran back in... to find the kitchen in flames.

The entire north wall was ablaze. The stove was wrapped in flame. The kitchen was an inferno.

Dorf stood there, goggling at it. What the fuck? He'd only been gone two seconds. How the hell does a fire this huge start in two seconds?

About then, a tiny part of his mind interrupted his ponderings to point out that his house was on fire, and to suggest that he do something about it.

Um... okay. How does one put a fire out? Water! You put water on it!

Dorf ran to the sink, and turned on the water. It ran ineffectually out of the faucet into the sink. Dorf began grabbing handfuls of it and throwing it at the burning wall. It didn't seem to do much good. Was the fire SPREADING? Man, this wasn't WORKING! How ELSE did one put out a fire?
Um... well... you BEAT it out!

Dorf ran to the wall and began slapping at it. VERY briefly. He then jerked back sharply to blow on his newly hairless knuckles to cool them. Plainly, barehanded wasn't going to work. What else was there to beat the fire out with? He cast around him for a dishtowel, a blanket, SOMETHING--

Nothing.

Desperate, he yanked off his underwear and frantically began trying to beat the fire out with them. He whacked the fire three or four times without much visible affect. On the fifth swing, he realized that his Fruit Of The Looms were on fire, and let go of them to keep from getting burned.

After that, he decided to just stop doing anything and stand there and scream for a while. After several good screams, he felt a little better, but his house was still on fire, and now he was naked.
What else did one do when the house was on fire?

CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT!

He ran into the living room, grabbed the phone, and dialed 911, and yammered his address into it, adding "FIRE! FIRE! HAAAALLLPPP!!! before he slammed the phone down again. About then, it occurred to him that perhaps he should tell his roommate about this. He saw, on the notepad next to the phone, "Am at Doc's, 555-6431", so he called my place, and screamed at Max that the house was on fire.

Oddly enough, having successfully DONE something about it, he felt better, and lit a cigarette, and waited for the fire department to arrive. He took a drag, and glanced into the burning kitchen.

...and realized that he was sitting on his butt, naked, in a burning house. He was in actual physical danger.

His mouth dropped open, and his cigarette fell out of it.

Into his crotch.

I should probably point out that Dorf was so rattled he hadn't hung up the phone. Max was still standing there, listening to nothing. Suddenly, Dorf began screaming, and Max was convinced that his roommate and bosom buddy was burning to death, and that's when Max shouted at me and pelted out my front door.

Well, yeah, Dorf WAS burning alive, just not quite the way Max thought.

Meanwhile, Dorf had retrieved his smoke, and ran again into the burning kitchen. What the hell? What to do? It would take the fire department too LONG, what was he going to DO--

...and his eyes fell upon the fire extinguisher hanging in its little bracket, next to the stove.

I wasn't there, of course. I can only imagine the look on Dorf's face. It must have looked exactly like in the movie Army Of Darkness, where Ash is facing the horrible undead monster in the pit... and suddenly, someone throws him his chainsaw.

Dorf seized the fire extinguisher with alacrity... and burned himself on the hot metal. It hadn't been IN the fire, but close enough long enough to heat up significantly. He dropped it. It landed on his toe. He hopped around screaming for a few seconds, all the time he could afford, and then grabbed the thing again. It was still too hot, but by Ghod, he was going to put the fire out. He grabbed the handle, aimed it at the fire, and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He squeezed again. Nothing.

After that, he went a little nuts, and began beating the extinguisher against the burning wall, weeping and crying and screaming and cursing the evil rotten appliance that had so failed him and refused to put out the fire.

About then, he noticed that there was a tag hanging on the extinguisher. Of COURSE! Read the INSTRUCTIONS! He quickly backed away from the fire, and took the tag in hand to read it.

The tag was on fire.

Screaming and howling, he tore the tag away and slapped out the flames. Too late. It was unreadable.

At that point, he jumped up and down screaming, ready to break the damn extinguisher over SOMETHING--

--when he noticed the little ring/pin thingy sticking out of the trigger assembly. It was intended to prevent accidental discharge. Bob immediately slipped a finger through the ring and yanked--
--and it stopped. It was held onto the extinguisher by a little plastic loop, the same one the tag had been hanging on.

Dorf yanked again, HARD. Nothing. It was too tough. It wouldn't give or break.

Screaming and shrieking and howling like the damned, Dorf PULLED--

--and the cord broke. The ring came free. Dorf flung it across the room. The extinguisher was in hand now. The pin was gone. NOTHING would stop him from raining foamy death upon the enemy flames! And Dorf spun around to face the burning wall and squeezed the trigger--

...the wall wasn't on fire.

Dorf let go of the trigger. He stood there and goggled.

The wall was not on fire.

Dorf stood there some more. He stared. The wall was not on fire. The wall HAD BEEN on fire, but now was NOT. What the hell was this? How does a fire go from nothing to Firestorm in two seconds, and then from Inferno to nonexistence in two seconds? The wall wasn't charred. Nothing seemed damaged.

Had... had there actually BEEN any fire? Was Dorf losing his MIND?

He stepped forward ... cautiously... and put his hand on the wall.

The wall was hot, hotter than it should have been, but not so hot that you'd think it had been burning. Hey, there were scorch marks, up near the ceiling? Dorf felt the stove, and promptly burned himself on the hot metal.

Plainly, the wall HAD BEEN on fire... but now ... was NOT.

A flicker of flame caught his attention! Dammit, the evil sneaky rotten fire had MOVED! It had OUTFLANKED HIM! He spun around, extinguisher at the ready!

A thin tailing of smoke and the stench of burnt vinyl flooring rose from a little white mound. Dorf's underwear was still on fire, where he had dropped them. Dorf pointed the extinguisher, squeezed the trigger. The extinguisher worked fine, and killed the little flame immediately.

About then, he heard sirens, and someone screaming his name, nearby. Dorf abruptly remembered that he was naked. He ran into the bathroom, to get a towel...

...and that was where we came in.

The firemen were mystified. The wall did have scorch marks, and SOMETHING, some sort of sudden thermal effect, had blown out the windows and shattered the aquarium... but what the heck was it? The firemen knew any NUMBER of things that would cause a wall to burst into flames suddenly... but NONE that would suddenly vanish, leaving only traces of scorch instead of total destruction. What the hell?

About then, one of the firemen picked up the exploded bombshell looking thing. He looked it over, and then called Dorf over.

It was a can of hair spray. "Where did you leave this last, before the explosion?" the fire chief asked.

Turned out he'd been doing his hair and shaving, all at the same time, right there on the stove, in the reflection off the chrome. He'd left the hairspray right on top of the stove. It had heated up and exploded, hosing the entire stove and the wall with wet hairspray, which had then ignited off the heat from the burner with the saucepan on it.

Fortunately, hairspray doesn't burn real hot. It hadn't ignited the ceiling (although it had scorched it pretty well) or the drywall. The only things it really COULD ignite were flammables like clothing and paper... and when the fuel had burned out, the fire had simply vanished. Luckily for Dorf.

The fire marshal gave Dorf a nasty lecture about flammables and kitchen appliances. Dorf stood there, head bobbing, yes-sir-no-sir-three-bags-full-sir, and took it. Max and I examined the rest of the apartment. Max mourned the loss of his beloved fish. Finally, the firemen left.

Dorf staggered to the couch and lit another cigarette, to steady his shattered nerves. Max and I sat down with him. Man, what a night...

About then, a sort of thin, distant grinding shrieking noise was heard from the kitchen.

Dorf about had a conniption fit, right there. WHAT THE HELL NOW?!?!

I leaped to my feet, ready to flee. This place was DANGEROUS!!!

Max leaped to his feet, too... but then walked into the kitchen, toward the source of the sound.

It was the somewhat melted, damaged but still functional, kitchen timer.

Dinner was ready.

(This story originally included Dorf’s toasted chicken sandwich recipe, but it has been lost. Perhaps this is for the best.)

The Phantom Shuffler

It was a dark and stormy Halloween night...

Well, no. It was actually a week to Christmas, and clear as a bell. It was night, though.

It woulda been around 1982. I was home from college. It was kind of comforting -- I hadn't been home since the previous May, and I'd never been away that long before. Anyway, it was a week to Christmas, and I was back in my little tiny hometown out in the middle of nowhere without a thing to do. My sister was out catting around somewhere with her boyfriend, my parents had gone to a Christmas party at his job... and I was alone in the house. Bored. I dug around in my bedroom until I came up with something to do... a copy of The Shining, by Stephen King. I'd read it before, but I was bored...

So I sat down in the back sitting room and began to read. I skipped a lot of stuff, got to the good parts in the middle where Jack Torrance meets the bartender and little Danny is almost killed by the bathtub monster...

...and I heard a noise outside.


...

...

I heard a noise outside. Specifically, I heard someone walking up to the back door.

My first thought was "What's Dad doing home so early, and what's he coming in through the back door for?"

He did not come in.

I waited.

He did not come in.

I shrugged and went back to my book. The dead fat lady crawled out of the tub and moved toward little Danny...

I heard a couple more footsteps.

I stopped reading. I waited.

I got up and walked to the back door and looked out the little window. "Dad?"

There didn't seem to be anyone there. I went and sat back down.

I'd barely gotten my butt on the cushion before I heard the footsteps again. This time, they were walking away from the back door... towards the laundry room. Following my movement on the other side of the wall, almost.

I stood up again in a hurry. The footsteps stopped.

I looked at my own feet. I was barefoot, like I usually am indoors. The footsteps were not mine, or echoes of mine; they sounded like my father's, or some big man wearing leather-soled shoes, shuffling his feet a bit, like he didn't want to pick up his feet when he walked... a sort of shhht, shhht, shhht sound.

I walked over to the back door again, and this time, I flicked on the porch light. I glanced around out the window without opening the door. I especially looked hard to my right... toward the laundry room. There didn't seem to be anyone there... but couldn't he have run behind the laundry room? Maybe. Wouldn't I have heard him, running across the grass? Maybe...

A digression: the wall wasn't much of a wall. The wall of the back sitting room had originally been a screened-in porch. When my old man bought the place, we'd converted it into an extra room, just by putting up wood siding on the outside, and cheap paneling on the inside. This had the side effect of making the wall acoustically transparent... you could clearly hear what was happening in the back yard...

I sat down again to read my book. The dead fat lady's hands closed around Danny's throat...

shht, shht, shht... shht, shht, shht, shht...

I jumped upright, threw the book down, and ran to my room. I got my old baseball bat, ran to the back door, and threw it open. Flicked on the porch light. Looked around.

There was no one in sight.

Yeah, well, peachy. I stormed out the back door, and strolled around behind the laundry room. No one there. No sign that anyone had been.

On the way back, I glanced at the laundry room door. Could he be in there? Not likely -- the sliding door tended to stick, required some muscle to open properly, and was noisy. Surely I'd have heard the racket if my phantom stranger were trying to hide in there.

I walked back in, and closed the door. Turned out the porch light... and this time, I locked the door.

...shhht, shhht, shht....shht-shht-sht-sht-sht-sht......

I leaped to my feet, grabbed the bat, ran to the door, unlocked it, yanked it open, hit the porch light, and ran into the back yard. I was sick of this. If one of my old buddies was screwing around, he was going to get hurt. I hoped he thought the lumps were funny.

There was no one in the back yard.

I checked behind the laundry room, behind and inside the hot tub. No one.

I faced the laundry room.
"If anyone's in there, show yourself," I said. "I'm coming in there in a minute, and if you surprise me, I'm gonna bash your fucking head in."

No one answered. I kept the bat in my right hand... approached the door... and, lefthanded, yanked it open. It made a hell of a racket, but opened. I leaped into the laundry room, ready to kill anything that moved.

The washing machine looked stupidly at me. The dryer agreed with it. Nobody in here but us appliances, boss...

I didn't get it. I KNEW I was hearing footsteps. Where the hell were they coming from? The roof? Why would anyone be on the friggin' roof?

...about then, it occurred to me I'd left the back door standing wide open.

I rushed back out of the laundry room, leaving the door open, and back into the house. No one was there. I closed the door, locked it... and left the porch light on, this time. I searched the entire house, top to bottom, closets, under beds, cabinets... everything. Nobody here but us college students, boss.

I went into the kitchen and made a cuba libre and drank it. After a minute, I made another one, but this time I left out the lemon and Coke, and I drank it, too.

...and then I went and sat down in my chair, ball bat at my side. I did not pick up the book. I waited. After a moment, I got up and got Dad's 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun off the rack, and loaded it, and put it near the chair. Yes, I know, alcohol and shotguns aren't a good combination, but I was eighteen, okay? Teeners aren't known for their judgement.

...and I waited.

Was I scared? Yeah. I was more angry than scared, though. I figured I knew exactly what was happening: someone was playing games with me. When I caught 'em, I would hurt them.

I even figured I knew who it was: my old high school buddy, Lightning (so named for an experiment he had performed at a Sonic Drive In; he became angry with the waitress and had demonstrated his contempt by peeing in the speaker/microphone doohickey. We hadn't known they had an open circuit in there, but all of us found out, him in particular. He'd been "Lightning" ever since...) ...and this was just his kind of stunt. Scare the hell out of someone, then roll on the ground laughing about it.

I grinned. I'd give him something to laugh about. He could giggle all the way to Intensive Care.

...I sat, and I waited. It occurred to me I hadn't checked in the washing machine or dryer. Lightning was a skinny little guy; he could well have hidden in either of the two, with a little effort. I listened to hear if he came out again.

Ten minutes later: nothing. Could be he'd been hiding in the trees, I thought... and got scared when he saw me tearing around with that ball bat. He could be a dick on occasion, but he wasn't stupid. Well, okay, not very stupid.

Ten minutes after that, it seemed clear: Lightning had jumped the fence and gone home, having no interest in paying for his joke with a concussion and/or gunshot wound. I was alone again. I put down the bat and picked up the book.

I read for a long time. I'd gotten as far as the part where Jack goes back to the bar and has the long talk with the bartender, and then goes to get the roque mallet... when I heard it again.

shhhhhhht......shhhhhhhhht....... shhhhhhht...... very slowly. Downright Frankensteinian, in fact. I grabbed the bat and yanked the door open.

The door wouldn't cooperate. It was locked. I struggled with it a minute, got it open, and ran out, then ran back in, turned on the porch light, and ran out.

Nothing.

...but the laundry room door was only partly open.

Had I done that? Or had someone been screwing with it? It occurred to me if you were strong enough, you could lift it off its rollers... and open and close it totally silently that way.

I stormed over and yanked the entire laundry room door off its sliding rollers, and tossed it into the back yard. No way he could fix that without making some noise. I walked into the laundry room, checked inside the washing machine and dryer. Nothing. I walked out and into the fruit trees, looking for signs someone had been there. I poked my ball bat into the foliage. Nothing.

There was no one in the yard.

No one but me.

I walked back toward the back door. I glanced behind the hot tub, and in it, in the interests of thoroughness. Nothing. I walked back towards the laundry room---

---and right behind me: shht-shht-shht-shht-shht....

I screamed, and spun around with the ball bat, putting everything I had into that swing—
---there was a bright flash of light---

---a sound like a gunshot---

---I felt the bat hit something solid --- and then go THROUGH it---
...and I spun around twice and fell on my ass.

WHAT THE FUCK HAD THAT BEEN?

I was blind; all I could see was that flashbulb burst, glowing on my retinas. I couldn't hear anything because I was yelling at the top of my lungs. I didn't dare get up; in the time that took, whatever I'd hit might recover and go for my throat... I HAD hit it, but what the hell was it? It'd felt like my bat hit something solid, and then gone through it...

...so I settled for scooching around in a little circle on my butt, in the grass, howling frantically, and waving my bat around trying to hit something.

Suddenly, I saw something right ahead of me move. I promptly whacked the hell out of it with the bat.

I screamed. It had been my foot.

I staggered to my feet, hopped onefooted into the big pale thing that I hoped was the doorway (it was) and slammed the door. I stood there hopping up and down cursing myself for an idiot, and waiting for my vision to clear.

When I could see something that wasn't a big purple blob, I looked out the window. It was pitch dark. I flicked the light switch off and on. The light did not go on.

I ran and got a flashlight, and the shotgun. Flicking the light on, I carefully opened the door and looked out.

There was no body. There was shattered glass everywhere, and a horribly twisted wrought-iron thing on the pavement. Bare wires hung from the wall near the door.

I'd panicked and bludgeoned the porch light to death.

I stood there in the doorway, looking down at the mangled wrought-iron coach-lamp-style porch light fixture. Mom had bought that thing in Mexico. It would be all kinds of fun explaining this one.

I felt like a prize fool.

I felt like the Great Chump Of Western Civilization.

I heard a few stupid noises in the yard, I destroyed the friggin' porch light, and now I stood there with a belly full of booze and a loaded shotgun. Yup, that's problem-solving at its best...

I locked the door, turned the switch off to prevent a short or something, unloaded the shotgun, and sat down. I had checked the entire back yard. There was no one there. There could not have been anyone there, unless they could jump over a nine-foot fence, or the house, or they were invisible.

Disgusted with myself, I put the shotgun back on the rack, put the shells away, and sat down to check my foot. I'd hit myself on the ankle, but not broken anything. No doubt I'd be limping in the morning.

I picked up my book, determined to ignore any more phantom noises.

It was a good forty-five minutes before I heard the next ones.

These were different footsteps, though...

...shht*....shht*....****...shht**....SHHHT**...shht*...

The shuffling footsteps were back... and this time... I could hear the tiny tinkle of broken glass, gently kicked aside by the feet making them...

I stood up, as carefully and quietly as I could.

shht...shht**...shht*.. I could hear it plainly. It wasn't my imagination.

I picked up the flashlight. I tiptoed to the back door and glanced out the window. I couldn't see anything without the porch light.

shht...shht...shht****... I could hear it clearly. It was about three feet away from me, through the door and to my right, a little closer to the laundry room than I was.

I shone the flashlight out the door.

The shuffling stopped immediately... but I didn't hear anything else.

There was no one there.

I shone the light beam around. I could see a little pushed-aside pile of broken safety glass, where a foot had shuffled, and pushed them.

...and the shuffling started again, this time while I was looking directly at the spot where the person should be.

I jumped, in spite of myself, and flashed the light around. The shuffling stopped.

I can't describe how I felt. Well, sure I can -- I wasn't angry any more. I was pretty sure Lightning couldn't turn invisible, or he wouldn't have had to bug the older guys to buy him his beer.

This wasn't some chum playing a prank.

This was something else entirely.

My heart felt like someone had dropped it in ice-cold sulfuric acid.

I think this was where I really discovered the border line between scared and terrified. Scared is when you've got the football team mad at you, but you understand why you're scared -- as in, they're going to pound you to a pulp.

Terrified is something else entirely. Terrified is when you see something that should not be, and your mind finally gives up and says, I don't know WHAT the fuck is going on, because this is impossible... but it's still happenin', man.

I discovered that hair really could stand on end, if you were terrified. I suddenly really had to pee, despite the fact that my genitals had suddenly withdrawn into my pelvis.

I turned the light off. I picked up the phone. I dialed the sheriff's office, and when they answered, it occurred to me that I had no idea what to tell them. I had a ghost in my back yard? Yeah, right. I told them I thought I had an intruder in the back yard... and then it hit me. I asked him to send someone to do a drive by, and the dispatcher agreed, and when I hung up, I ran into the kitchen and hit the master flood switch.

Dad loved to barbecue and he liked to hold parties in the back yard. He'd installed floodlights, big ol' 200 watt monsters that lit up the whole back yard. Furthermore, the kitchen had a bay window; I'd be able to see most of the back yard without having to open the back door.

...but from the kitchen, I couldn't hear anything. I had a fine view of the walkway and laundry room, but it was too far to hear if my visitor was still doing the Undead Tim Conway Shuffle.

I was scared green. I didn't like it. I wasn't used to it. I was fairly sure I could handle any local yo-yo who wanted to play games... but this was nothing I had ever seen before.

I called the neighbors whose back yard butted against ours, and told them the intruder story. I asked them to turn their floods on, too. They did.

I called the party where my parents were, and told them the intruder story, too. They agreed to come home.

They arrived at the same time as the cops. The cops did a sweep of the neighborhood. Nobody out and around. My folks asked what I'd seen and heard, and what happened to the back porch light?

Against my better judgment, I told them.

They didn't believe me at first, but eventually, they came to conclude that their only son had in fact heard SOMETHING... he didn't normally attack wrought iron light fixtures with enough wrath to make them unrepairable. But, come on, a ghost in the back yard?

I went to bed, feeling rotten.

Over breakfast, Dad had an odd look on his face. He mentioned he'd heard something outside the back door, right before he went to bed. He'd checked it... it was nothing... but he'd locked the door and loaded the shotgun.

It had sounded to him like some guy shuffling around in leather-soled shoes...

***********************************************************
Christmas came and went, and we heard no more of the Phantom Shuffler. I went back to school for the spring semester. I eventually forgot about it.

Until my mother called one afternoon. She wanted to tell me that she'd finally heard the Shuffler, too. She'd been out doing laundry, and heard someone shuffling around on the back walkway... in broad daylight.

As she walked back and forth, transferring loads of laundry around, she heard him twice more. She was beginning to get freaky...

Finally, she shut herself up in the laundry room, but left the crack of the door open a little. She sat down on the floor and stared at that segment of cement walkway... and waited.

About ten minutes later, a horned toad scuttled out of one of the oleander bushes. A moment after that, another one came out, too.

...shht-shht... shht...shht...shht... went their rough, leathery bellies on the cement as they did their courtship dance thing.

...shht-shht-shht-shht-shht, went the pavement, as the male hopped onto the female and began boinking away...

Recipes: 2

This dish has its roots in Mom's Tuna Salad. Mom taught me how to make it, and it worked out just fine in college, provided I could keep it refrigerated -- it'll go bad overnight if you don't.

Something most college guys have to figure out for themselves is that proper nutrition can't be maintained by standardized consumption of beer and pizza (when times are good) or beer and macaroni and cheese (when times are poor). You have to eat some greens and veggies occasionally. This salad is loaded with them, tastes great, and you can adjust the makings to suit your desired calorie count.

Thing is, sometimes I wanted to make the stuff but didn't have the necessary ingredients; I had to improvise. Lo and behold, you can improvise any number of ways with this salad, and it's still quite good. I recommend it for sandwiches or just scooping straight out of the bowl with crackers.

It got its current name due to a cat I used to have named Faust; my roommates at the time nicknamed him Professor Doktor Faustus because he learned how to open interior doors by jumping up and grabbing the handle with his front paws, twisting it, and kicking the doorjamb with his hind legs until the door swung open. If the door swung inward, it usually took him a little longer.

Once a week or so, he'd wear himself out trying to open the front door, which was too heavy for him to move.

Anyway, he was a chow hound extraordinaire -- if he had you pegged for a sucker, you couldn't eat around him until he'd inspected the meal and received his tribute. Part of that was my fault -- he and I had an agreement that if he'd keep his distance while I ate, I'd save him a nibble at the end. For some reason, though, Faust had no respect whatsoever for one of my roommates at the time, a guy named Max.

One day, I decided to make tuna salad. I diced up some celery first, and while opening the cans, Faust of course raised hell about wanting what was in them, and I drained the water and let him have it, and he raised hell about wanting the REST of what was in the cans, and I ignored him and he swatted my leg, and I ignored him and he bit my ankle and I ignored him... and then I heard the crunching sounds behind me.

I turned around. He had leaped up on the other counter, and was eating the celery. Apparently, he meant to have SOME of what I was doing, whether I liked it or not.

Max came home from work later and asked if there was anything to eat. I told him there was tuna salad. He went and fixed a sandwich and sat down on the couch to watch the news with me. Faust promptly hopped up on the coffee table and yauped for his share.

Max ignored him.

Faust looked irritated, and leaned over the edge of the table, reaching out a paw to hook the sandwich and bring it closer for inspection.

Max moved the sandwich where Faust couldn't reach it, and bipped him gently on the nose with a finger by way of chastisement.

This was the fatal error; you could swat Faust or yell at him, but to patronize him was a grave mistake. Faust responded by suddenly leaning way forward, winding up with one paw, and firmly clouting the sandwich out of Max's hand.

Max squawked.

I goggled.

The sandwich arced gracefully through the air.

Faust cocked his head, calculated the feast's flight path, sprang off the coffee table, and positioned himself about where the sandwich would land on the floor, all in about three-quarters of a second.

I goggled.

Max recovered, leaped to his feet, hurdled the coffee table with a mighty bound, and fielded the sandwich out of the air about a foot above Faust's waiting hungry paws.

They looked at each other like that for a minute -- Max's face filled with unbelieving outrage, Faust's face creased with mild irritation.

Max roared.

Faust bolted.

I goggled.

Max launched himself after the cat, squishing the sandwich in a deathgrip, waving it around as if he meant to bludgeon the cat to death with it.

I sprained a latissimus, laughing.

*****************

Required:
a good-sized tupperware-style bowl with sealing lid

Ingredients: use only one from Column A, at least three from Column B, and at least one from Column C.

COLUMN A:
Miracle Whip salad dressing (1 1/2 cup or so); the new Miracle Whip Lite tastes just as good and has lots less fat, if you're into that sort of thing
Mayonnaise (1 1/2 cup or so)
Tartar Sauce (1 1/2 cups or so, or about 40 of those little packets they have at Long John Silver's)

COLUMN B:
one or two pickles, chopped up fine or run through a grater; whether they're sweet or sour depends on your taste. Pickle relish also works fine.
one good sized stick of celery, chopped up fine
a small onion, chopped up fine (about 1 cup chopped onion)
1 can sliced water chestnuts (not much flavor, but they do add crunch)
l small apple, cored and chopped up fine (mind the seeds!)
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/8 cup chopped chives
1 cup cooked pasta (I always liked those multicolored corkscrew noodles or green spinach noodles, but nearly any pasta will do as long as it's in small pieces), boiled or steamed to be tender and slightly springy; drain and let cool before adding to salad; do not overcook!

COLUMN C:
3-6 entire hardboiled eggs, chopped or run through a grater (Put a pot of water on. Bring to a rolling boil. Put the eggs in it, and set the timer for ten minutes. This recipe works at all altitudes and at sea level.)
1-2 cans tuna (I prefer packed-in-water to packed-in-oil, and always be sure it's dolphin-safe; there's no telling what those fishermen may try to pack in a can and sell you...)
1 package of artificial king crab legs or lobster bites, chopped fine (these taste great, and can be found at the grocery store near the seafood; you can use real crab or lobster if you want, but this is cheaper)
1 can Spam, ground or grated (this is one of the few ways you can totally disguise the taste of the stuff)
1 cup bacon bits (Use real bacon bits. The artificial kind work okay, and they taste fine, but they get soggy and don't crunch, and what's worse, the artificial red color tends to bleed off the bacon bits into the surrounding salad and makes it look like you're eating a Bowl-O-Roadkill.)

Throw everything into the bowl and mix well. Note that it's not a good idea to use more than one from Column A; they don't mix well. Likewise with Column C; use seafood or Spam-and-bacon, not both (eggs work equally well with either one, and make your meat stretch much farther).