Sticky Ham & Other Profundities

They tell you not to judge a book by its cover, but isn't that what everybody does in Borders?

You also probably shouldn't judge pre-packaged ham by its expiration date, but that's what I did yesterday in my kitchen.

Shame on me.

I purchased a vacuum-sealed package of Primo Taglio hammy slices at the market yesterday morning and, as I was preparing my lunch like a good little poor boy, I opened the package. When I stuck my hand in to extract a slice or two of ham, I felt as if I had just lost my wristwatch up Slimer's asshole. My face contorted in displeasure as I said aloud, "What the fuck is that?" to no one in particular-- maybe the dog who was salivating below, hoping I would drop a bit of porcine pleasure onto the floor. I turned my gaze reluctantly towards the packaging and observed a very thick, mucousy film covering the ham and the inner packaging. It looked like Gollum had vomited all over my ham.

I immediately pulled out my hand, which now looked like I had been fistfucking sewer pipe, and washed it under scalding water with copious amounts of Dawn. I then thoroughly inspected the package for some kind of clue as to what this mystery goop could be. I carefully scanned the back of the packaging for words like "saliva" and "rubber cement" but I found no such ingredients. Turning it over to the front, I read the words, "Primo Taglio Sweet Maple Ham -- In Natural Juices." Hmpf, I thought. Whose natural juices? They looked, and felt a lot like my "natural juices." My horny juices. What was my ham doing covered in horny juice? And then I read the expiration date: August, 2009.

Oh, I thought. Phew. It's fine. And I finished making my sandwich.

After I came home from work, I told Mrs. Apron about my unsettling culinary experience.

"So, what did you end up taking for lunch?"

"Oh, the ham. I made myself a ham sandwich."

"You ate that? You ate ham that was covered in semen?"

"Yes."

"That's disgusting." Sometimes she's such a vegetarian.

"What? The expiration date says August, 2009."

Listen to me. "But the expiration date says!" What if the ham had been black? What if it had glow worms going to the bathroom on it? Would I still have eaten it if the expiration date said it was okay? What if the expiration date was a misprint? What if the meat was infected and infested with piggy-sicky and hoof and mouth and mad hammy disease? What would I have done if it smelled like dead chick pussy? Would I still have eaten it?

And, the sad, cold, hard truth of the matter is: I just don't know.

See-- I trust safety inspectors. When I see and expiration date, it's like a speed limit sign or a contract-- it is meant to be obeyed. Expiration dates don't lie. We once had milk in our refrigerator that had gone past its expiration date a couple days prior, and Mrs. Apron was still expecting me to use it in my coffee. Now, granted, I only put in about the equivalent of one tablespoon of milk in coffee, but I sniffed that shit like it was coke. I poured it gingerly, slowly, methodically into my cup, as if it were liquid nitrogen or holy water. And, all that day, I waited for the inevitable signs of food poisoning. But, see, the milk smelled absolutely fine. It didn't have semen in it. But, because the date was a couple days past, I was immediately suspicious.

The ham, though, was fine, because the numbers on the package said so.

This reminded me of my EMT training course. Our instructor was desperately trying to instill in his students a sense of moral responsibility, a feeling of duty, he was trying his best to create empathic, observant, intelligent, compassionate, competent emergency medical technicians. Of course, for all his efforts, I was the only one in the class who graduated, but that's beside the point. I remember one class he was teaching us about the pulse oximeter, which is a small, handy device that measures the oxygen saturation of a patient's blood, as well as their heart rate and respiratory rate. Ed was trying very hard to tell us not to be lazy EMTs, EMTs who just watched the numbers on the pulse-ox and never actually checked on the patient, as long as the numbers were good.

"Look," he said to us, "granmaw Edith can have great numbers on the pulse ox-- she can be satting at 99% on room air and have a pulse of 92 and respirations of 16, and that's all great, but look at her fucking face-- what if it's blue? Ask her how she's feeling every now and then, for Christ's sake. Don't just look at the numbers. A patient can have numbers that read fine and they can be dying right in front of you. So don't be an asshole, right? The numbers don't tell the whole story."

And ham can be very much expired, just like granmaw Edith, no matter what the numbers on the package say.

"Well," Mrs. Apron asked finally, "how did it taste?"

"Oh, it was great."