Ornameat
15 months ago, on an airplane, I received this hermetically sealed meat snack:



I didn't dare open it. My co-workers and I were fascinated by its agelessness and seeming inability to decompose. I wrote the date on the package and set it on my windowsill at work, to receive daily doses of the glaring Colorado sun. Just to see what would happen.

Months went by, and the meat slowly turned from happy pink to sluggish grey. After about a year however, it failed to change color anymore and I decided it was time to throw it away.

Walking into the office the other day, I noticed that the christmas tree that somebody put up in the lobby looked a little sparse. Then it hit me. A use for the meat snacks! Ornameat! (I work in the same office as the Father of Robodump so we're used to pushing the boundaries of acceptable office behavior).

We cracked open the package and hung each slice using little ornament hooks. The meat was slippery, but not rancid. Perfectly preserved, smelling very salami-like. It makes one wonder what, if anything, happens to it when it is consumed by people. The janitor (the same guy who was shocked by robodump) saw us taking pictures, but he didn't seem to catch on.



Now that the meat has been liberated from its sarcophagus, we hope it will begin to decompose, fouling the lobby. But I suppose perhaps it will just become ornament jerky. My greatest hope is that at the end of the holidays, the tree gets thrown into storage, then resurrected next year with ornameat intact! It is risen!