mummified piglet on a christmas eve

it all started on a bright and blustery sunday as i pedaled about the Atown. it was a lit day. i told some hippeie lookin guy on the beltline he had some sweet flowers as i biked past him on his bike. and he just gave me his wee bouqet of purple flowers! Bless.

i also biked past all these stalls and stuff at this pop up market in the parking lot of estoria but one definitely stall drew me in like a small swarm of gnats to a very sweaty man.

it was the dead stuff booth.

yellowish chunks of human teeth were arrayed in a small black box box and all different bloated pickled animals like i think maybe a bunny or something floated suspended in a gooey light greenish blue liquid. tiny bat skulls with vampire like teeth delicately sat on the table and when i asked the guy where he got all this stuff he said something pretty vauge like "oh, yano... just know people." this of course made me love it even more. not just dead stuff... but a sketchy guy selling dead stuff. poifect!

i swiftly and eagerly made some very important purchases including two bb bat skulls and one fetal mummified pig. the pig was in a little plastic bag. its teany ity bity hooves lay bunched together and each small riblet poked out of its chewy looking hide of a dark maroonish brown color, rather like beef jerky. for it's eyes only small dark carverns remained. shpoooky. it was my most prized purchase. the bat skulls were just white and small and intricate but i smashed one on accident. but i loved all my three dead things as if they were my three new pets.

anyways i was pretty amped bc i knew that those dead things would make most splendid christmas gift but i hadnt decided for whom yet. all i knew is it was gunu be a real rad someone.
i didnt even decide who would be the recipient of the magnificent mummifieed bb pig till the night of christmas eve.

what had happened was i was working christmas eve which was a pretty big disappointment(because work was so un christmasy and id normally be at church...like ew who goes out for five course meals on dinner whicha boo... wrong, wrong, wrong again! you're supposed to be hopping around whicha family at church um duh.) but yea so to cope i decided to take christmas with me to work by giving gifts to coworkers (whether they wanted them or not). i gave some tame mugs with cookies inside and some lame sparkly water bottles and stuff like that but i was secretly most excited about my dead pig.

after the crazy non stop zooming around the restaurant and dealing with endless droves of people out to eat crab fritters at bacchanalia i at last came down to my locker and was met by my box of gifts which i had totally forgotten about in the chaos of christmas work.

i walked down the long white hall downstairs and closed in on my prey at the end of the hall. it was chef johnny who was doing chef work.
merry christmas! i squeaked out to johnny, the bacchanalias chef de cuisine. i thrust the plastic can in his hand. it had a big red bow on top.

i knew from the beginning i had to give the dead BB pig to someone special who would understand how cool it is because it takes someone special to appreciate neat dead stuff. i had always really appreciated chef johnny because he didnt scare me and i could go ask him as many dumb questions when i wanted when i was bored like "would you eat a roach for a thousand dollars" and "how did you propose to your wife (he sent his pet to carry the ring to her!). i always looked forward to monday nights when he was the head chef working because instead of scampering around the usual head chef with a bowed plebian head i could expect to hear cool stories of line cooks shitting their pants or find out that the best mediteran place to check out in atlanta. i totally was feeling cool dead pig vibes from chef johnny.

what is that? johnny asked slowly with a look of mild alarm and surprise as he raised the plastic jar to eye level.

tis a dead mummified pig! i proudly proclaimed doing a two second dead pig jig on the spot to make sure he understood this was really special. ok that's a lie but maybe i shoulda done a dead pig jig.

in reality i think i told him it was a dead bb pig with a small feeling that i had made a big mistake raising in me belly.

johnny just stood there with his eyes wide and staring at me through his glasses.

"that is vile and disgusting" said he.

a small burning pot of embarrasment and alarm dropped from my chest to the bottom of my stomach but determined to hide the squishing of my soul i said my voice getting even higher "dead things are cool though!"


with the same wide alarmed eyes johnny responded, "this is basically like you giving me aids".
i forced out what i hoped sounded like a good natured laugh rather than a gulped sob and hoped no coworkers could hear my failed dead pig gift.

"im sorry but i cannot accept this." he said starting to walk down the hall.
"whatever!" i replied now anxiously noting coworkers by the locker.
"and i almost think its racist bc im egyptian!" he added as we neared even awfully closer my other coworkers.
"newwww!" i squealed out in protest.
we were at the lockers then and i just shoved the dreaded piglet in my bag and tried to act normal hoping chef johnny would keep a zipper on the lipper and i darted into the bathroom

i tried my best to play it off and flounce off but i made doubly sure to dash into the bathroom as quick as i could to hide in sadness and failure. im not sure why- oh yea i didnt want him to keep talking about it to any of my coworkers.
eventually i had to go back outside and then cried all the way home.
i lived in deathly fear of George my coworker finding out that i tried to bestow a dead mummified pig on chef johnny. i was so ashamed i didnt want to go back to work for awhile. i felt so rejected. in retrospect... im not even sure where all the shame came from. i really dont care now.
because honestly who gives a flying shit.
and the moral of the story is give dead things away on christmas bc dead things are neat and rejection makes for good stories, amen.