Hamstrung

Lindsay won a ham. He is not sure how it happened (the win that is); the actual arrival of the ham was itself quite clear and abrupt, as Lindsay, on his way out the door was foisted a ham by the office manager. “Happy Christmas, Cheerio!” It was so heavy that he had to put it down.

A huge, repellant ham. I am convinced that it should not be eaten as is.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the butchers in the slightly upscale neighborhood of Parap. “My boyfriend won a ham. It looks like that” – pointing at another insipid, shrink-wrapped monstrosity, milky ham-liquid collecting in the vein-like folds of plastic – “what do I do with it?”

The butchers turned around from their bench, father and son perhaps. The look was distain. I am in a country where pubs raffle off trays of meat, rolled out supine on movers’ dollies. I do not belong.

The ham is taking up an entire shelf of the refrigerator. Nat and Gary wont take it. Nor will Mal and Amanda. Richard and Ainslee have already left. I fear the shelf will crack.

Pictures of hams – I am Googling “smoked leg bone in ham” instead of writing my Masters thesis – look as tanned and glossy as burled walnut. Mine is an Englishman’s thigh.

The Internet complicates the issue by suggesting that what I am missing is a “ham bag.” The Internet then suggests that if I don’t have a “ham bag” I should use a pillowcase; should I use the sweetly stripped one that my mother sent me off with? Does this have to do with hobos? In Parap, I see a store selling a ham bag (no stick). It was too heavy to be carried that way anyhow.

I call Claire. Heidi answered. “Yes, you can tell her that Kate called about The Ham.”

Claire has not called back.

I call Jess. “Why don’t you cut it up like a mango so that people can pull off little cubed pieces.” She makes a disgusting reference to erasers. I cannot reach mom.

I am running out of time.

Tomorrow we eat the ham. I have no ham bag. I have no ham plate, or ham sauce, or ham plan. All I know is that when we are arrive at the party, when the hostess meets me at the door, I will – bending at the knees, not the waist – hoist it towards her, saying in perfect synchrony: “Happy Christmas, Cheerio!”