The Lutefisk Incident
Hi Jack,
Did you get the Lutefisk I sent you for Christmas? It doesn’t require refrigeration because I prepared it using the traditional method I learned from Olie, a Finn I knew who lived up by Brainerd, MN. You get some good whitefish, see, and salt it down real good with lye, wrap it in eight or ten sheets of newspaper, and bury it under your front porch for about a year. Even the termites won’t touch it! When the dog digs it up, it’s ready to eat. All you got to do is peel off the newspaper with a paring knife, and then boil it for about 2 hours to get the lye out, then pour on a can of condensed milk to get rid of any residual flavor, and bake it in the oven until the liquid is about gone. If it’s a nice gelatinous consistency, and tastes like burnt boiled rubber, it’s done to perfection! The Finns, Norwegians and Swedes love it!
Merry Christmas!
Warren
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Dear Warren,
Thanks for the Lutefisk. Unfortunately, the post office required a signature for delivery. I wasn’t home when the postman tried to deliver your package, so he left a note on the front door. It was standard Post Office language, "You have a package that can be picked up during normal post office hours..." I missed him the next few days as well. I was busy at work and couldn’t find the time. Things started getting a little touchy. I received a note that said: "Look, this package of yours really stinks, please come and pick it up." Then, "Okay, here's the thing. There's something retched in your package. I'd throw the darn thing in the trash, but this is the U.S. Post Office and destroying mail is a federal offense. Please, come and get it!!!" I finally went down the Post Office on my lunch break yesterday. There was a crowd of people in the parking lot and quite a bit of commotion. When I got close I saw my postman up on the roof with a box under one arm and a rifle in the other. He was ranting in a threatening tone. People were frightened. I asked what was going on. Somebody told me he had "gone postal." Now, I really don’t like this term, but what else can you call it? I could hear him screaming something about hating "this stinking job." The police were trying to negotiate with him, but he was too worked up to hear them. Suddenly, he threw the box he was holding into the crowd. People started to run. It splattered on the parking lot pavement. Lutefisk everywhere. It was like a big whitefish stink bomb. People went running for cover, but the odor enveloped everyone within the blast zone. The county's hazard response team moved in. Wearing safety gear they went up to the box and determined that its contents was fish. Nothing more. The clean up, they determined, would be relatively simple. Done right, the smell would go away in a couple of months. Nobody was seriously hurt, although some clothing was ruined. A man wearing a breathing mask held up a fragment of the box, which had my name and address. I identified myself and held up my claim slip for the package. People were giving me looks. I said, "hey, you ever try to get to the Post Office during normal operating hours?" People shook their heads in agreement. I offered to pay the dry cleaning bills for those involved and that seemed to calm everyone down. Meanwhile, my postman was talked down from the roof and led away in restraints. He's going to be okay. Rumor has it he will be promoted and no longer have to sort or deliver the mail. This is probably a good thing. Anyway, the Lutefisk smelled pretty good to me. I don't know what all the fuss was about. Such a shame what happened to it. You wouldn't happen to have any more you could send to me, would you?
Merry Christmas to you and Judy,
Jack
6:26:45 PM 
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