I was at the Citadel of Despair the other day (they doubled my hourly rate to do some business spamming freelancing before I start school - what could I say?) and, while working with the resident Good Old Boy, noticed that he had a can of Underwood Deviled Ham on his desk.
"Do you actually eat that, or was that a gag gift?" I asked. "I've been too frightened to try that stuff, because they sell it next to other questionable canned meat items like pork brains in milk gravy."
"No, that's good stuff! That's survival food! Here, try it!" And Good Old Boy opened it, and, quickly tossing the label before I could read it (N.B., deviled ham is wrapped in a paper wrapper, perhaps to give it a sense of style), popped open the can, stuck a spoon in it and urged me to try a bite.
"That looks like cat food!" observed Pumpkin Head*.
He was right. It looked like pink cat food, and smelled pretty bad. But I'm not one to pass up a dare, so, I tried a sample.
It tastes like ground bland meat - at first. Then it hits you: SALT! Your tongue is awash in salty saltiness! I tried another taste, with the same results.
I agreed with Good Old Boy's assessment that it was, indeed, survival food. "I would eat that in a bomb shelter," I said. Though I would hope for Spaghettio's without meatballs as my first choice. "Man, that's good stuff, I like to have that about 3 in the afternoon, on some crackers, when I'm sitting there in a deer blind," said Good Old Boy.
I retrieved the wrapper from the trash and found that the ingredients of deviled ham are salt, ground ham cured with salt and brown sugar, salt, and sodium.
My seceond taste sensation that day happened at home. I was getting in touch with my masculine side by taking a swig of milk straight from the container. Turns out, the milk had "gone funny" two days before its time. It wasn't chunky-style, but it was not good AT ALL. Yuck.
*One of the regional sales managers, he has a penchant for padding about the office in socks. One time Pumpkin Head was attempting to read the sales reports posted in the office, when it turned out he had been interpreting them wrong since - well, since the advent of the sales report, I guess. But the name is a term of endearment, and he's the only one who has stood up to Captain Insanity, so I like him.
