The Butcher Boys Cleaver is Alive

On Friday while Adam and I were taking part in our usual routine of hanging out in the teachers lounge after lunch until the time came to venture to Comedor to forcefully shovel slop into the mouths of the silverspoon Spanish youth an exciting message came to us.

There was apparently a present waiting for us in the adjacent library which we were to pick up at the end of the day. Knowingly betraying my common sense I immediately began to dream of the possibilities of this wondrous gift. Was it an envelope full of cash that would finally fill the gap between the slave wages we were making and minimum wage? Was it a coupon for the next two months in our apartment for free?

It was a box of food.

And a leg of ham.

These massive appendages are the closest thing Spain seems to have as a national delicacy. They stalactitically hang from the ceilings of supermarkets, their horrendous smell fighting off any confused urge to actually purchase one. Once stripped of the packaging, the item manifested is something very far from any thing that has ever been presented as "ham" before.

There is a petrified glaze over the entire thing, some sort of posthumous swine defense mechanism, a final line of defense against the impending consumption of the long deceased Wilbur. Amongst the vast surface area of this thing, there is not one minute location that looks like something that is fit for human consumption. The fucking toes are still on it.

We plan on unlocking the secrets of this mystic dish this week at work, and maybe one day when we are braver men, we will eat it.