Joe Learns A New Skill


        "Aren't you going to sniff that before you eat it?" Bufgoo asked.

        Joe looked down at the granite like slab of fruitcake that was in
    his hand.  "Of course not.  It's a fruitcake," he said before shoving
    the entire piece into his mouth where it stuck out both cheeks and
    made him look like godzilla chomping on a car.

        "Save me," Joe cried in a fake falsetto voice as he crunched on
    his imaginary sedan.

        "That fruitcake is vintage '64 man.  Eighteen sixty-four.  That
    thing is older than your grandfather."

        Joe pulled the gnarled brick, still intact, out of his mouth in
    order to speak, "Yeah so anything growing on it would be dead by now. 
    What's the worse that can happen?"

        "The monks can nail your ass for sneaking down into the cellar to
    get it."

        Joe shrugged and popped his fruitcake back into his mouth.


        Two weeks later, after finishing the last piece, Joe became
    violently ill.  He puked up small green, rock-like objects for another
    two weeks before finally getting over the sickness.  To this day, it
    is said, Joe can smell a fruitcake from two miles out to sea even if
    it's buried in a municiple waste dump.  He loves fruitcake that much.