Bittersweet Parting With Satanic Mystery Meat

It’s a sad, sad day; today, I threw away my beloved can of Deviled Spam.

Given to me by one Justin T. Williams in honor of my high school graduation some eighteen years ago, my satanic spam has been a prized possession: a charming (if disgusting and crass) trinket adorning various surfaces in a succession of homes; a perennial ornament on many a Christmas tree; a nostalgic memento—symbolizing lost youth and unraveled dreams, to be sure, but also enduring friendships, continuity amidst change, and all that is quirky and wonderful. To a former United Loner, a can of spam is much more than a small metallic container filled with an almost unfathomably disgusting substance attempting to pass itself off as food; it is a thing sublime.

(“Sublime,” or “sub-lime,” is of course defined as: “really cool, but not QUITE as cool as lime[stone].”)

I was removing the decorations from my Christmas tree today in preparation for getting rid of it when I noticed that the spam can’s seal had broken and some kind of vomit-inducing fluid was leaking out. As much as I loved that can of spam, the last thing I ever wanted was direct sensory experience of its contents. It is surely of profound philosophical significance, and deeply revealing of the inner workings of my psyche, this irony: that I would never have cherished the container as I did, had I not known what was inside it all along—and yet, the moment those contents became directly knowable, the whole thing lost its appeal. Why must we hide truths from ourselves about the things that we love? Is it only by turning a blind eye toward the cold, hard, slimy, stomach-turning reality of things that we are able to imbue them with meaning?

To be sure, Christmas will never be the same without spam on my tree. Of course, there will be some who will say, “But Dave—you can always get yourself a new can of spam!” The sentiment is well-intentioned, but it misses the point. For one thing, you never love any can of spam quite the way that you loved your first can. I mean, a new can wouldn’t even be all dented up from having been tossed around (and landing on the ground numerous times) at Pip-Camp during the summer after I graduated. Besides, is a can of spam something that one can really buy for oneself? And in any case, the truth is that the time for acquiring cans of spam is long past. Life moves on; we can hold on to remnants of the past, but we can hardly replace them when their seals fail and revolting liquids leak out of them—and if we try, we succeed only in losing ourselves in what was, and forget to cherish what is and what is to come.

And so, to those of you who still have their cans of spam, I say: Treasure them. Remember to appreciate them each and every day, because you never know when you may lose them. Gaze upon them and reflect on their meaning and the memories that they inspire. (But for god’s sake—don’t even THINK about opening them!)