Enter The Spamboy, Part 3
That tin of Spam my mother gave me, aye I remembered it, brother. So I kept it on my shelf in my dorm room, and that tin of meat accompanied me as I moved in and out of the building each academic year.
In 1996, I still possessed the can the year I was hired as a resident assistant in Bruce Hall. Because of its decades-old architecture, each door frame projected out far enough to provide a narrow shelf above each portal. So as a joke, I propped the Spam up top and displayed it like some sodium-nitrate mezuzah for all to see.
One day, I returned home to find that the can was missing. It is entirely possible that I was angrier than Sméagol right after Bilbo burgled his bling. The next day, the can had returned to its perch, albeit in less-than-pristine condition. It was scratched and dented, with its azure sides puffing outwards as if inflated like a balloon.
I quizzed my residents to see if anyone could solve this mystery, and finally they confessed — they used it to play hallway soccer, and the game ended when a hard kick sent it flying into a wall. But what they told me next was quite queer: when the can hit the wall, it produced a sound described as a loud sucking pop. The walls then instantly puffed out like a car airbag going off. If one shook the can, the insides would rattle like a can of Guinness. They freaked out, put the can back where they found it, and vowed to never speak of it again (so much for the vow). I kept the can where it was until I decided what to do with it next.
After awhile, the can started to leak, producing a flow which oozed forth like sap from a tree. Except, replace “sap from a tree” with “never-ending flow of pork-based glycerin.”
I couldn’t bear to part with the Spam. After all, it was like family to me, and haven’t we all had a grandparent or four that is old & leaky yet still beloved? In an effort to stem the nitrate tide, I sealed the whole tin inside a Ziploc bag. Some time passed and the baggie itself began to ooze. I placed the whole mess within a new Ziploc, and this sequence repeated itself twice more until my tin was safely tucked into four baggies much like Chinese stacking dolls. Except, replace “Chinese stacking dolls” with “four degrees of wrong.”