Do you or don't you?

 

This is serious, do you love fruitcake or don't you? It's a yanni/laurel type of thing, this. You either love the crumbly packed full of nuts and dried fruits loaf or you don't. Well? Okay, I love it. Don't tell anyone, but every year around this time I go a bit nutty and fruity for the dessert (?). I guess . . . you could call it that. A dessert? The Romans ate it for energy pre-battle like Popeye ate spinach before busting Brutus' obnoxious ass, so I guess to them it was more of a power up, Mario style. Not a dessert. Rum must have changed that. Aye, matey. Hand me that spiced fruit sweet rock before the scurvy hits. But then, there are real reasons to have it around. Rat killer. Free doorstop. How did this start up again? Romans . . . 

Can't remember the first time I tasted fruitcake, but it was probably at a family dinner and when I saw it alone among the puddings and pies I felt some kin of sympathy. I'll try you, I said, then willed my young buds to muster excitement. You're not weird or oddly shaped. There I stood in deep consternation a tall, wiry and freckled auburn-haired teenager still with a Hail Mary on her lips. Let's be honest, if you've already forced yourself to eat the Brussel sprouts, fruitcake isn't that far behind. Anyway, I tried it, and *secretly* went a little wild. Why wasn't anyone gobbling this stuff up like Dan Akroyd sniffing cocaine at SNL second season? The Irish lass in me was aghast and confused. Memories came to the surface--memories of a past life and many hardships. Mashed or fried--loam that is. Hey, fruitcake ain't that bad. But the others . . . seemed to prefer the more obnoxious whipped cream covered cheesecake--sort of a blasé option if you asked me. Boring. Trite. The whole thing was mysterious . . . 

Well, I've never been like the rest, I thought while shoveling it in. 

So there I sat while the others nursed their heart-stopping dairy confectionary and I thought, how can one get back to a buffet without being noticed? Surely, they were all too sauced to care but alas my return sojourn brought ire and much cachinnation: "Look at Amy, she likes fruitcake." Oh, God. The shame. 

As many others, I went into the fruitcake closet (a good place to hide and consume) and suffocated my appetite to a once-yearly limit. Which is good, because that's the only time it's available. By the way, there's mince pie, rum cake, plum pudding . . . Then came an obsession of consuming it with every Christmas Carol adaptation known to man. Let's see . . .  musical or theatrical? Alistiar Sim or Albert Finney . . . Surely, this is okay and perfectly normal. 

You, uh, haven't answered yet. Do you like fruitcake, or don't you? No, no . . . really . . . it's okay. I understand (wink). You don't to have to say. Some things are better left known only by the strong rum, butter and candied fruit vapor coming from your face orifice.