Main
Features
Columns
Categories
Authors
Archives
Search
Feedback
Contribute

Pigdog dispatched special correspondent Ratsnatcher for a holiday reconnaissance of America's frozen hell. After ten days of silence, our shortwave radio cackled with Ratsnatcher's static-filled transmission.

We're having menacing blizzards! Five inches of rust-belt acid-snow today! And it's a deep, burning cold outside. On Christmas day it was -25 degrees real temperature, which doesn't include wind-chill. There are filthy icicles everywhere, hanging off mailboxes and even people. They say it's the most vicious winter in years.

The hog population is being slaughtered en masse because the animals keep getting frostbite, which ruins the flavor of the meat. So all about town the snow is RED, and there's a powerful stink of roasting and curing pig coming out of all the chimneys. Just today I drove past a house that had six or seven large sows in a line on the front grass, each missing a head. The local kids put the heads on snowmen, for crissakes!! It's really grim. Nobody worries about wild dogs or critters getting at them, because the carcasses are frozen so solid that you would need a sledgehammer just to move them -- these things freeze to the ground right where they're killed -- and it's too cold for the dogs to be outside anyway. The only living things around here are the black jackdaws that perch about. They never touch pork for some reason, so it's not a concern.

The one thing that people in this state know how to do is drink. The liquor cabinet is well stocked at all times. They even have a Web Van-like delivery service here that does nothing but deliver booze and tobacco products. A pair of snowmobiles comes by every other day and tosses a satchel onto the porch. There is NOTHING to do in the morning but stay inside, nursing hangovers, and waiting for a break in the heavy storm action -- just so we can run out to the garage and chip off some more pork for dinner.

Ham! I'm swimming in Ham!

gable@pigdog.org