I’ll send you a care package

by Brendyn Schneider

Two years ago, the recession hit the company I was working for right between the eyes. Their solutions were to cancel the summer picnic and get rid of enough employees to fill a city bus. When I told my dad, he took it pretty lightly.

“Ah, what’re you gonna do, Bren? It happens. You’ll snap back. Tellya what – I’ll send you a care package.”

A care package, I thought. Kelly still had her job but some extra food would definitely come in handy while I looked for a new job. Ramen, soup, a little Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, some chocolate, maybe a few of those little sausage/cracker/cheese combos people have out at parties. Who knows? Maybe the guy would toss a few bucks in there too.

“Okay, thanks Dad. We’d appreciate that.”

About a week later, I noticed a large package beside my building’s mailboxes. There weren’t any “Fragile” or “Perishable” stickers plastered across the front – the kind of thing you’d expect on a boxful of this’ll-help-you-get-back-on-your-feet. No big deal. The box was from the same guy who used to ask me how old I was the day before my birthday. Slight oversight.

The next thing I noticed was the sheer weight of the thing. It was like a boxful of steel. In retrospect, I wasn’t too far off. I remember huffing the thing around to our apartment.

“Uhh,” I grunted, hoisting it onto the kitchen counter.

“What is that?” Kelly asked, putting on her glasses.

I couldn’t answer right away. My lungs were still in the lobby of our building.

“Is that the care package?”

“…Yeah. God knows what he sent us.”

There definitely weren’t any Lipton products in there and if there was money, it was strictly nickels. I fished out a knife from “the junk drawer” and cut through the eight yards of masking tape. Opening the box, I spotted a heavy cardboard tray inside – kinda like what you get from a deli when you buy four cups of coffee. I slid the whole thing out and Kelly’s eyes boggled.

“Oh my God!” she said, covering her mouth.

For birthdays and Christmas and well, any given time during the year, my dad will send me a can of Spam. It won’t be by itself but in partnership with things like cards or gift certificates, you know, stuff you normally get from parents through the mail. My dad throws in the Spam as a goof. I think it stems from how my brothers and our friend Jay used to blow up cans of Spam on the Fourth of July. Our rationale was Spam’s disgusting, how can it even exist? Let’s just blow it up. I still have a videotape somewhere of Jay and me hosing off my car because the explosion sprayed the back windshield with bits of fake beef. The aroma of scorched Spam and gun powder hung heavy in the air that day, my friends. My dad always got a kick out of that. So, I think mailing random cans of Spam to me is his way of keeping the joke going. Sometimes, there won’t be a can at all and the birthday card will simply read, “HEY BUSHEAD! SPAM! SPAM!”

As I mentioned earlier, Spam, or the reference to it, has been always been sent in conjunction with something else. When Kelly and I opened that care package, we saw a game change. Apparently, when one of his sons becomes unemployed, the gift of choice is a sixteen-can case of Spam.

“You gotta be kidding me,” I muttered.

Kelly broke into hysterics. “I didn’t even know something like this existed!”

Yep! Leave it to my dad to find a case of Spam, and not just the standard stuff you see next to the mustard at the grocery store. No, we’re talking assorted flavors. Flavors! Smoked Hickory Spam. Bacon ‘n’ Cheese Spam. Chicken Spam. Steak ‘n’ Onions Spam. Barbecue Spam! They friggin’ barbecued it! The fine folks at Hormel decided to crack one of these things open, throw it on the grill, put it back in the can and include it in the Spam Party Pack.

“Dad,” I said into the phone. “What am I supposed to–”

“Didja get it?” he laughed.

“No, I got something else. This isn’t a care package.”

He laughed again. “Sure it is! You ever eat the stuff?”

“No. You know I don’t. Have you?”

“Nah but it’s good eatin’. Spam brought people through the Depression, y’know.”

“Dad, what am I supposed to do with this?”

“I tol’ ya – eat it.”

I remember looking at the case, horrified. “Where did you find this thing?”

“Hey, this is Florida, Bren. That’s how it is. It’s not like up there in New York or Boston. They have stuff like that down here on every aisle. You wouldn’t believe it.”

“I can’t imagine how much it cost to ship something like this, Dad. It weighs a ton.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it. Times are tough for you right now. It’s the least I can do.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey, if you don’t want it, blow the whole thing up for all I care.”

It sat on our window sill for five months. Goodwill wouldn’t touch it. We couldn’t throw it out. It was kinda food and it didn’t seem right to waste it. We toyed around with the idea of mailing it back but that didn’t seem right either. It was a gift – designed to help us through tough times. So, the months went by.

One day, my friend Greg was up from New York. His eyes touched upon the window sill and he gasped.

“My God!”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Is that Spam?”

“Yep.”

“A case of it!?”

“My dad sent it to me back in July as a care package.”

“You’re the luckiest guy in the world!”

“Why?” I asked. “Do you want it?”

“Are you serious?”

“Are you serious?”

Greg finally peeled his eyes away from the window sill. “Bren, my girlfriend friggin’ loves Spam.”

“People actually eat this stuff?”

“Lisa grew up on it,” he said, approaching the package like it was Vishnu. “Spam is huge in Poland. Both our families love it. Look at this! Hickory?”

“Hickory.”

“Barbecue?”

“Barbecue. Chicken too.”

“You sure you wanna just give this to me?”

“Greg, I’ll even carry it to your trunk.”

Now, some care packages from my dad have had a little more edge; they’re a little more perilous. It was June of 2001. I was on my way to the John Hancock Observatory for my Observation Deck Representative position. It was sixty floors above street level. I talked to tourists, pointed out the city’s historical attractions and set up function rooms for private parties. On slow days, I worked on my first novel. It was the best job in the universe, hands down.

Before catching the subway into town, I checked my mail and noticed a care package from my dad. I tucked the box under my arm and sprinted to the train. With my apartment key, I cut through the six yards of masking tape and emptied the Styrofoam nuts into my book bag.

Peering into the box, I made eye contact with a smiling cartoon bottle rocket.

It’s a good thing I was the only person sitting in the car.

“Oh no. This is very illegal.”

Getting to my feet, I knew that I’d be late for work but the very real alternative – taking that box with me into a Boston skyscraper only for it to be inspected by heavy security – was far worse. I took the next train back to my apartment and dropped it off.

Later on the phone, my father laughed and asked, “Didja get it?”

“Yeah, I got it, all of it.”

“Nice little assortment, huh?”

My eyes jumped from the helicopters to the whistling bottle rockets to the roman candles, finally resting on the 6-inch-in-diameter pink cake. A laughing Japanese business man was flying across the label – the result of a giant “100!” exploding over Tokyo.

“Dad, you mailed fireworks.”

“Yeah, I know how much you miss the Fourths we used to have on Long Island.”

“I know but Dad, mailing them is illegal.”

“Legal down here.”

“Not in Massachusetts! And I’m pretty sure the other states along the way consider them illegal too.”

“Bren, in Florida, we got supermarkets full of fireworks. It’s unbelievable. You gotta see the stuff they got down here. Where you gonna light ‘em off?”

“I can’t light ‘em off, Dad! I’d love to but I’m in the middle of a city.”

“You got a roof?”

“Yeah.”

“Shoot ‘em off from your roof.”

“Yeah, you’re right. That’s not conspicuous. I can’t believe you used the federal government to assist in the trafficking of fireworks.”

“Ahhhh. ‘Trafficking.’”

I could imagine him, waving the thought away with his hand.

“Dad, what if they had gone off along the way?”

He laughed. “Don’t be such a worrier. They didn’t, did they?”

“No.”

“Come on. It’s not like I sent you heroin. Get a bunch of your friends together and light ‘em off. Have fun.”

Looking back, I wish I had. Growing up, I loved fireworks. We all did. That’s really what led to our sinking M-80s into the phony meat of Spam cans and letting them rip. Setting off a few six-stage, 8-ounce rockets would have been a great nostalgic trip. My friends and I could have found a place to do it too. No doubt. Unfortunately, the whole box met a two-part end, first in my bathtub then in the dumpster around back. Yeah, I wimped out. Sorry Dad.

However, I’ll end on this note – I’m starting a new job next week. Dad, if you decide to mail me something in honor of this new shot at employment, I promise to call some friends, find a park and set fire to whatever it is. You have my word.

Readers, stay tuned.

***
More stories by Brendyn Schneider can be found at www.brendynschneider.com

© 2010-2012, Brendyn Schneider, reprinted by Dadity.com with permission. Use or reprint not authorized without permission of the author.

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