The following is one story from my book, "If The Hills Could Talk" www.davidnelsonauthor.com
The Christmas Fruitcake
I
like all kinds of traditions. I especially like the Christmas tradition of
standing in long lines at the post office to mail packages that have a high
probability of getting delivered six months later. The term Postal Service is
an oxymoron. I like watching television reports of people standing in long
lines outside closed stores, in the middle of the night waiting for the store
to open. I enjoy the news showing the rush of people fighting, punching, and
kicking to buy some toy that the media convinced us we should own. I wonder if
that’s what is meant by tidings of good cheer? One tradition I don’t like is
paying off my credit card in January.
I
like food and I like to eat. I like the tradition of preparing treats that are
only made at Christmas. It’s fun to re-invent the learning curve because I
forgot how to make an item during the past year. It’s also fun to learn the
same thing new each December. I think that might be one definition of insanity.
The added holiday stress is something my Type A personality enjoys. So does my
pharmacist because I have to load up on anxiety medications. My heritage is
German and Norwegian. We talk a little funny but we enjoy our Christmas foods.
Each
year at Christmas my family makes potato bread and a cookie. The bread is
called lefse. It’s a large round flat piece of dough. It’s warmed in the oven,
covered with butter, rolled up and vigorously chewed with every bit of jaw
strength one can muster. And that’s just to bite off a piece. The Norse god,
Odin, first had it served to the souls of slain warriors because it would last
an eternity. My brother, Richard calls it reindeer hide. He doesn’t like the
stuff. But he’s not much of a traditionalist. Lefse is a Norwegian version of
beef jerky. It can last forever. Krumkake is a Norwegian waffle cookie that
takes a long time to make. Each cookie is made by hand one at a time. The first
bite crumbles the cookie into hundreds of tiny pieces. As a kid I always liked
watching adults make a mess. Uff-Dah!
There
is one tradition I do not like - that is the re-appearance each December of
fruitcake, the most disgusting food item ever created. Fruitcake was discovered
by accident by a Greek fella named Imus Disgustus.
He
was sitting around one day fully crocked on some fermented apple juice and felt
creative. You probably don’t know this, but he was the first person the see a
chicken lay an egg. There he was, soused to the gills and saw what appeared to
be a white oval-shaped thing fall from what he thought was the chicken’s butt.
He scratched his head and pondered. “Hey, we can crack that thing open and eat
it.”
Later
that day, ole Imus was out of his happy juice and was scrounging around his bachelor
pad trying to find more alcohol of any type. All he could find was dried up
raisins, hardened cranberries, crusty blueberries, chunks of cherries,
fermented figs, dehydrated apricots and he finally came upon some brandy. He
thought he’d have some fun.
He
decided to cook something during his drunken stupor. He mixed the five-year old,
dried up ingredients with some flour, sugar, baking powder, allspice and baking
soda. He tipped some brandy into the mess for good measure. And presto! He
created the first fruitcake. The year was 1170 AD. There are still edible
pieces of his original cake displayed in Athens at the Martha Stewart Museum
for Aged Products.
I
got to thinking. Who in the world should be given this disgusting, vile, repulsive
food as a holiday tradition? Politicians. Politicians should be given fruitcake.
The descriptions of the food and the profession are the same. An added benefit
might be their inability to swallow and thus hinder their ability to talk. We
could all prosper from that. When a politician isn’t talking, there are no lies
being told.
I
think we should give one to our judges each December. Surely, they would write
a court order of protection that no normal citizen could be within a half-mile
of fruitcake. Those folks waiting in lines in the middle of the night at closed
stores would be exempt from that order because they are not normal anyway. Plus
the name itself pretty much describes these folks – fruitcakes.
I
gave a loaf to my neighbor last year. He owned a dog that barked constantly.
The neighbor fella must not have liked my fruitcake. I saw the fruitcake thrown
out into his back yard. He probably figured the dog would eat it. That dog has
been trying all year to eat and swallow the stuff. Ah-ha. I just noticed there
has been no more barking.
Workers
in the pharmaceutical industry should be given fruitcake and forced to eat it.
The side effects include constipation, upset stomach, difficulty swallowing and
nasty residual taste, inability to speak for hours, loss of sex life (because
all they are too busy chewing), painful jaws, and seventeen others.
I
sent one last Christmas to some prisoners sentenced to life without the
possibility of parole. I figured it would take them that length of time to eat
my gift. After all, fruitcake does last a lifetime. It’s the gift that keeps on
giving.
Some
dentists set out trays with bite size morsels of fruitcake in their lobbies.
This stuff will chip or loosen a perfectly good tooth after just three bites. I
figure it’s good for the dental business. But then, maybe some of the dentists
just want to use their new reciprocating saws they bought at Home Depot. I
found that to be the best tool to cut this stuff into pieces.
There
is one time a person should never eat fruitcake. Never attempt to consume this
vile concoction if you are scheduled for a colonoscopy in the next six months.
The ingredients will still be embedded inside and can appear as radioactive
polyps. Then your medical insurance rates will increase because you will have a
new diagnosis.
Lastly,
I don’t know of a single person who claims to like fruitcake. If I hear of
someone who claims to enjoy fruitcake, I can never locate him or her for an
interview. Trust me, I have tried. They are nowhere to be found. That’s like
the people who were supposedly asked questions in a national survey or a
political poll. I’ve lived a long time. I know lots of people and never met a
person yet who claims to have been a part of some survey.
If
you do ever meet one of those folks, they are probably lying. I’ll bet they
will tell you that they like fruitcake also.
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