The Ballad of Samad Hoshweebeeweebeeweebeeweebee...

A couple of weeks ago, I celebrated the first 100 followers to this blog with a rather long, drawn-out, and frankly sycophantic post wherein I thanked everyone and let them know that I either was a regular reader, remembered their pithy comments, or just generally gave them a thumbs up. I started the train with Gwen, who was my first blog follower.

Speaking off...is anyone else's blog following add-on malfunctioning, or is it just mine?

Anyway, I differentiate between Gwen being my first blog follower and, well, followers in general because, long before I started puking words onto a screen in some semblance of cohesion and story, I had a follower. Well...follower seems kind of a light term to apply to the chap. Imagine, if you would, that the foot fungus you picked up on the floor of your gym was a follower, and that might quantify the meaning a bit better for you.

As a senior in college, I had it all: easy class schedule, ability to drink, living next door to Big Willy Style, single room, hot on-again-off-again girlfriend with loose morals and big tits. Apparently, this hedonistic lifestyle was enough to attract the attention of this freshman named Samad Hoshweebeeweebeeweebeeweebee...

Samad's last name is kind of messed up because his dad was Iranian and his mom was German (or something else Teutonic), and the pronunciation was kind of confusing. I'm pretty sure there's a K in there somewhere. Anyway, saying it is kind of like when I'm drunk and trying to spell "banana", I don't remember where the "weebee"s are supposed to end.

Anyway, Sam (as he liked to be called) was a solid 350 pounds on a 5'5" frame and his features were strikingly like a blond Rupert Grint. Everywhere that Sam went, he wore a cream-colored sweater that might have--at one point--been white, but prolongued exposure to dorm life and Sam quickly turned it ecru and worse. And, when I say "everywhere", I mean everywhere. Given Sam's bulkiness, this meant that he sweat profusely everywhere he went. Sunny day in spring? Sam's sweating. Sitting in the cafeteria, wasting the evening? Sam's sweating. Walking to the pisser? Sam's sweating.

Not only did Sam wear the sweater everywhere and sweat everywhere, he followed me everywhere. It was like I had summoned some sweaty, foul-smelling, portly familar from the very bowels of Hell to constantly be at my side and a step behind. Creepy, yes, but also flattering in a megalomaniacal sort of way.

And he would appear at some rather inopportune times. Once, I went down to the toilets to toss a whiz. I left my door open a crack. I came back to find Sam sitting on my couch, unannounced (though the yellowish tinge to the air should have clued me in that he was in the building). One time, I was having a rather naughty conversation with the aforementioned on-again-off-again hot girlfriend and we were galloping toward the phone sex route. My door was closed, but not locked. Just as I unzipped, there was a bang at the door, like someone had kicked it as they were shuffling toward it. A fraction of a second later, the door swung in and there was Sam, hulking in the doorway. I frantically pulled a jacket over my lap and told the Ex- I had to go and hung up the phone as Sam came in and sat on my couch. He just wanted to chat. About nothing.

Sam was good at putting the cockblock on me.

There was even a night when Sam caused me to break up with another girlfriend, whom I've dubbed Carrie Nation. You'll learn more about her tomorrow. Carrie Nation worked at Wal-Mart across the street and lived in the dorm next to mine. She loved football. On Monday nights, after I get done helping Dr. Awesome teach the freshman general chemistry lab, I would come home, unwind, and Carrie Nation would come over after work and we'd watch football together. What a fucking sexy couple we made.

Anyway, Sam came busting into my room about ten minutes before Carrie Nation arrived, plunked himself down in my chair, and proceeded to sweat copious amounts of funky Sam sweat everywhere. The mephitic cloud pulsed around him, getting slightly larger with each dollop of sweat that ran down his temples. So, I'm chatting Sam up, and it puts me in a weird mood. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen in the room, maybe I just woke up on the goofy side of the bed that day, or maybe I just remembered to take my meds that day, but I was in rare form when Carrie Nation showed up. I was, like, extra flirty. I was grabby. I was all sorts of weird.

This, coupled with the fact that I was flipping over to a NASCAR race on ESPN2, really pissed Carrie Nation off. Two days later, we were through. I blamed Sam, because he stayed with us until halftime of the game. Then he and part of his funk left; the rest of the funk stayed behind, lingering in the air like the greasy residue clinging to the grill in a short-order kitchen.

Retrospectively, I should have thanked Sam for rescuing me from the evil clutches of Carrie Nation.

This was not the only night that Sam put the cockblock on me. No, there was also Halloween of the same year, when I filled up on rum and went ashore a-lookin' fer some booty...and not the kind you find in a chest. Well, maybe ON a chest, IN a bra. You get the idea. There was this girl, Ann-Marie Vidal, whom I had a touch of a crush on. It was one of those kinds of crushes where, if we were better friends, maybe I would have followed up on, but it was borne mostly of youthful lusting. Which, for college, was good.

Anyway, as I was staggering about the darkened campus, I came upon Ann-Marie and a couple of other people. I started talking to her, noticing that she wore a tiny Christmas tree upon her head. Halloween does provide for some easy conversation starters. Things progressed nicely with Ann-Marie, and suddenly, I'm thinking, "Holy shit, this might actually come to fruition!" Yes, I am strangely verbose when I'm drunk and having conversations in my mind.

Suddenly, as if he rose up from the ground, Sam hove into view.

And Ann-Marie recoiled in horror. It's one thing to suddenly have a very large, very sweaty, very stinky person appear out of nowhere; it's apparently quite another thing to have a very large, very sweaty, very stinky person appear out of nowhere and do nothing but stare at your tits. As quickly as she could, Ann-Marie sped away. I tried to follow, asking her if I could escort her home. Sam was nipping at my heels like an eager puppy. I don't know if he had designs on my sloppy seconds or what, but he was not to be dissuaded.

Finally, I did the chivalrous thing: I let Ann-Marie escape. As I stood there, watching my lustful desires bounce away into the night, I wanted to gut Sam. But, I was too nice. I started toward my dorm, but Sam was to follow. Finally, at the last second, I diverted my course and turned toward the on-campus bar, where--being only 18--Sam could not go. I eluded him and spent the remainder of the night drowning my sorrows with my friends Susan and Julia and some dude wearing a Yoda mask.

You would think that my story would end here...but, alas, it doesn't. Every spring, my school hosts a go-kart race for students. Alumni tend to gather because it's a weak excuse to drink heavily. My wife and I had been dating for about a month and a half when the race rolled around in 2000, and I made plans to take her there and show her off to my friends. Along with us came my grad school buddy, Dr. Assy. It wasn't difficult to get him to come; I said, "There'll be a beer and brat tent." He perked right up and came along for the ride.

In the 23 months since I had gotten my sheepskin and joined the ranks of alumni, I had forgotten about Sam. Apparently, for the 23 months I was not there, Sam had been doing the 350-pound upright walking version of a puppy pining for its master. I arrived, girlfriend in tow, and within five minutes, there was Sam. Still wearing the white sweater (which was now a sort of dingy gray), still sweating, still looking to clean up my sloppy seconds. Holy fuck.

I tried every diversion in the book I could think of. Nothing worked to try and escape his predatious clinging and licentious staring at my girlfriend's chest and ass. I knew I should have gutted him long ago.

Suddenly, it dawned on me: Sam is young. He graduated from high school young. Sam can't go in the beer and brat tent.

I immediately bee-line for the beer and brat tent, my girlfriend in tow, Dr. Assy not far behind. Sam is halted at the door by the cop watching the tent and making sure the underaged crowd doesn't sneak in. My girlfriend gets in because she's with me and she's not drinking. We leave Sam to rot.

Finally, served our lukewarm beer and tepid brats, we sit down for lunch. Sam has abandoned all hope and has shuffled off somewhere else. We dine in a relative stench-free environment.

"Who was that?" the Comely and Buxom and As-Yet-Unwed Bouddica asked me, an involuntary shiver tingling her spine as she spoke.

"Jesus Christ," I said, after sitting down and smearing ketchup on my brat, "that fucker was like that when I was in undergrad, too. Guy followed me everywhere."

"Yeah," Dr. Assy added, "I can see that guy being like a disease."

No truer assessment of an individual's personality and demeanor has ever been uttered in the annals of human history, because Dr. Assy got it right in his very first shot. To avoid further conflict, we spent the rest of the day in beer and brat tent, only coming out to go to dinner with a bunch of my friends and then returning to campus to drink in the bar and enjoy a gloriously Sam-free environment.

Painting the Town Polka Dot

I'm not really here today. Instead, I'm on a plane, headed to Springfield, to view the famous Springfield Tire Fire and the now defunct Springfiled Monorail (too late, mom, the crowd has spoken...). Hey, it worked for Ogdenville.

Oh, what? Wrong Springfield? Ah, silly me. I wondered why no one was yellow with big bulgy eyes. Anyway, I'm having a coffee with fabulous blogger friend Sass. And then we're going to get mo.stoneskin (kinky) and we're all headed off to meet up with Scope and see Cowguy's band play. Ah, fuck it. You can read about my adventures yourself.

You should also cue up R.E.M.'s Losing my Religion for when you read it.

Aren't I clever?

Anyway, I shan't leave you without a fun little story while I'm off to Springfield, painting the town with Sass et. al. So, I'll tell you a little tale of what happened to me yesterday.

I got an email from my wife, the Comely and Buxom and Ailurophobic Boudicca. She was telling me about her lunch, and how she decided a pickle would go perfectly with her sandwich and chips. So, she reached into the pickle jar and pulled out...a pickle. But it wasn't just any pickle. It was a pickle that reminded her...ahem...of me.

Now, there's a euphemism for masturbation one uses from time to time: "jerkin' your gherkin". I had no idea how dangerously close to real life this could be. See for yourself.

Nice, huh?

Though, I have to worry if my wife thinks something so small which is green, spotted and knobby reminds her of me. What's that I feel? Oh, it's the beginnings of a complex. Fantastic.

And just for your personal edification: she ate it. Popped that thing in her mouth and swallowed it right down.

Now I know she was lying when she said it reminded her of me: she didn't even dip it in mayonnaise first!

Happy Fourth of July

I know yesterday that I wished you all a Happy Fourth...in Latin. While that might sound more profound and such, it's just not 'Merican enough for me. So, sit back, tune out the baseball game for a couple of moments, grab a hot dog, tuck into a slice of apple pie, and let's hump this rhino.

It seems as though this time of year, everyone's celebrating their Independence. Just the other day, our Fellows to the North celebrated Canada Day, and I told you about how the Scottish won their freedom 695 years ago. And while we might not have had to win the freedom of our land from flocks of zombie canaries, nor did we have to drive the king into the river and route his forces so badly that they cried, we did stand up and give a big double bird to the King of England and his unfair tax on our tea. And lead and stamps and glass and pretty much anything else that was awesome.

I mean, it's a lot nicer that we could gain our independence with a few pen strokes on a piece of rolled up parchment and not have to sully ourselves with fighting and battling and squaring off against the king.

Oh, hell, who am I kidding? I guaran-goddamned-tee that things would have gone a lot more swimmingly if we had simply said "You know what, we've got this guy fighting on our side. What are you going to do about it? Now pack up your pricey, overtaxed tea and haul your red-coat wearing limey asses back across the Atlantic, or else he'll roundhouse kick your jaws back onto Piccadilly Circus."
Now, everyone have a happy, safe Fourth of July, or else Chuck is going to come knocking on your door, and you'll have to deal with his beard. And if you're throwing some hotdogs on the grill today, remember I like chili and cheese, and I'll be by around 2:00.

TMI Thursday: Two for Number Two

So, I've been mulling this over a bit. It's not that I don't have plenty of good, juicy TMI stories. I mean, you've been reading my blog for, what, a couple days now? You realize that there's pretty much nothing about me that says "whoa, too far, I'm not going there."

However, it has occurred to me (read: sunk in through my thick skull) that there are some things most likely better off not said. Mostly these involve times when I've been inside someone, particularly my wife. Along those same lines, since she reads this, I'm sure she doesn't want to know about what I did with my ex-girlfriend in her ancestral bedroom back home while her father was most likely lying in his own bed, hearing us through the walls, and fuming. So, with those types of stories culled from the broad scope of things that I've done in my life that involve bodily functions of one type or another, we're pretty much left with stories about shit.

And, that's what we have today. A shit story. However, I realized that it wasn't all that great of a story, by itself. It's kind of amusing and all, mostly because I'm a dumbass, but it's still nothing grand and glorious. So, I'm giving you two tales of the toilet for the price of one this week.

Oh, don't get too excited. The second one isn't all that great, either.

STORY THE FIRST:

Anyway, about nine months ago, I was at work, calmly synthesizing my little heart out when suddenly I got that heavy feeling 'round back that told me I better find a commode quick or else we'd have a chemical spill of sulfur hydrogen iodine and tellurium. Yes, I know, that's spells "SHITe". Eat me.

So, I strip off my gloves and labcoat and then proceed wander down the way to the sanctum sanctimonium where I spent the next fifteen minutes contemplating what I ate the night before that could produce a smell so pungent and foul that the paint had begun to peel from the walls and the floor tiles slowly curled on themselves. After relieving myself of approximately fifty-three pounds of corn-addled excretia, I turned to behold what I had created. It was anything but good. And worse, with my ass having raised from the seat, I popped the seal over the bowl, and thus I unleashed an unholy and foul nebula into the room that threatened to overwhelm all creatures great and small within a twenty foot radius. Quickly, I wiped, flushed, flushed again, and once more for good measure. With tears streaming down my cheeks from the redolence hanging thick and blue in the air, I washed hastily and dashed from the chamber of secrets, seeking asylum in my office.

It just so happened that mere moments later, a tornado warning was issued for our county.

One of the "severe weather shelters" for our building happens to be...the men's toilet. It also happens to be the nearest shelter for my lab and office suite.

I ran, screaming, from the lab, shoving small children and old women aside. A friend of mine, who worked and sat next to me, made straight for the nearest shelter. I, however, bolted down the hall to one of the back offices, which are also tornado shelters.

A few minutes passed and the tornado warning was lifted. We returned, safely, to our offices and labs. My friend, who had sought refuge in the crapper, asked me, "So, why didn't you come in there with the rest of us?"

Now, honestly, after the tornado rips the building asunder, they're going to look for survivors and corpses among the rubble. Do you really want to be found dead in the privy? No, neither do I. However, I felt this answer would not suffice, nor was it wholly true.

"Well, you see, I know what I did in there twenty minutes before the warning, and I sure as hell wasn't going back in there."

"Ah," said my friend, with a bit of a smile, "well, you'll be glad to know that the smell has cleared...mostly."

STORY THE SECOND:

We had a bit of an odor issue the other day at work.

And, no, smart guy, it wasn't me.

It was a chemical. Somehow, it had gotten loose, and this particular brand of chemical--called an isocyanide, if you must know--is particularly foul. If you can smell it. I, however, cannot. It gives you headaches and causes you to want to vomit and gives you a sore throat. Nasty bastard, to say the least.

Anyway, shortly after arriving at work the other day, the two cups of coffee I had downed while driving the kids to school struck my lower abdomen with a vengeance.

"Hmmmm...must be 9:30," I thought.

I ambled down to my happy place and sat there pondering the ways and the whiles of the world for a bit. Finally, after releasing two very large, very healthy brown trout back to their natural habitats, I cleaned myself, took my leave of the place, washed my hands, and returned to my lab. I sat for a while, checked my email, and then called my wife and spoke to her for about twenty minutes. After I hung up, I worked on my notebook for a bit and then decided that I was thirsty. Oblivious, the entire time, to the fact that my lab had been evacuated until further notice.
See, the order had come down that we were to leave the labs and offices whilst I was in there discussing the pricing options with a man about his big, brown horse. Fortunately, after thirty minutes, I decided to go get some water from the break room. There, I found my labmates and team members, chatting idly about the stink in the lab and how they had to evacuate.

"So glad you could join us," one of them said.

"For what, now?" asked I, joyfully filling my water bottle.

"The smell in the lab. They've told us not to go in until it's resolved."

"Oh," I replied, a tad nonplussed, "Jolly good then."

I joined them at the table, then, suddenly understanding the plight of Charlie-in-the-Box, grape jelly squirt gun, Spotted Elephant and the rest of the Misfit Toys.

Although, I'm fairly certain, given my location when the evac orders came down, even King Moonracer wouldn't have scooped me up and whisked me away to his island kingdom.

For other truly tasteless tales of tawdriness, check out LiLu's joint at Live It, Love It: TMI Thursday.

Kill the Pig...

...spill its blood, slit its throat.

Nothing like starting off with a good, violent line from a classic piece of literature. However, did William Golding know something we didn't, what with this Swine Flu/Hinee thing running amok through the world's population, leaving death and destruction in its wake? I think he did. Kill the pig, indeed. And not just the fat kid with the glasses. Don't look up, tubby.

To that end, I offer you this to try and make it through your day. Enjoy.



I guess we'll all meet over at Mr. Sanders' joint later for some back bacon and mead.

How to Tell if You Have Swine Flu

The most recent overhyped media frenzy when it comes to public health is the dreaded Swine Flu. Remember back when we had to fear birds? Yeah, fuck that. It's pigs now.

People are terrified of this new, porcine-originating flu. And rightly so. 150 people in a nation of 110 million have died! That's a mortality rate of 0.000136%!!! Gnash your teeth and beat your breasts, the Black Rider is among us, touching us with his sickly, sausage-infested scythe, harvesting souls right and left with his latest biological weapon, the Swine Flu.

Being the scientist that I am, I've decided to allay some of your fears. The Swine Flu isn't something that you'll get by hanging out with pigs. You also cannot get Swine Flu by eating the savory, succulent flesh of the pig--you can, however, get fat from eating too much of the savory, succulent flesh of the pig. The name "Swine Flu" means that it originally was a pig flu but mutated into a strain of flu that can now infect humans. So, transmission of Swine Flu comes from people, not pigs. No need to put the pork chop down, fatty, you're safe. Jowly, but safe.

If you are afraid you've come in contact with anyone who has had Swine Flu, stay the fuck home. Turn off the lights. Draw the curtains. Sit in a bathtub. Weep.

If you are wondering if you have contracted the Swine Flu, check to see if you have any of the following symptoms:

• You are achy.
• You have chest congestion.
• You have lots of yellow mucus in your sinuses and throat.
• When it comes time to eat, any slop will do.
• You have grown a curly tail.
• You've grown more chauvinistic.
  
• You've developed a stutter and an aversion to pants.
• You suddenly want to make out with a frog.
• People mistake you for a cop.
• Jabba has hired you to guard his palace.
  
• Spiders are writing you messages in their webs.
• When you're outside in the sun too long, you smell something delicious.
• You bear an uncanny resemblance to Porco Rosso.

If you exhibit any of these symptoms, please contact your nearest health professional and/or barbecue supply store.

Have You Guys Seen This?

I know, I know. I'm a grump. I dislike LOLCatz with the white hot passion of a thousand burning suns, or some other hyperbolic metaphor that comes to mind. Essentially, I want to pick kitteh up and punt his ass over the nearest river, but that's just me.

Oh, sure, I was lured in at first. I thought, "Oh, ha ha, yeah, I guess a cat would talk that way. Oh, look, ceiling cat is watching me masturbate! That cunning little pervert, hiding up there in the ceiling like that." Then, suddenly, I knew what it was like to be one of my love interests, and then things started feeling creepy. Kind of like that time I was wrestling with Uncle Tony.

*ahem*

Anyway, Lou at A Scientist's Life turned me on to the greatness that is ROLCatz. Except the R should be switched around, Toys R Us style, but with less silly stylized, cartoonish giraffes. At first I was like, "Yeah, okay, there's a bear and he's showing us his naughty bits, nice, nice, okay, hugging cats, yeah yeah...ho fucking hum..."

And then I came across this little dandy here:

"Ahhh...pig iron, your musk is that of glorious industry!"

I fucking died. I don't know why. Maybe it just hit me the right way, but it's hit me the right way ever since, every time I log in and look at it. Just like that time when I was wrestling with Uncle Tony.

*ahem*

Of course, there's some douchebag who clogs up the comments section with his "that's not the right translation, it's really 'mmmm...I smell sausages!'" Eff off, douchebag. Didn't you see Red Dawn? I mean, fuck, those bastards snuck up on us, and we still stopped them cold *slams fist on desk* at the Rockies!

Douchebagginess aside, the site is mildly entertaining. There are some good ones in there, and there are some others that are kind of "meh", and then there are some like pig iron kitteh up there that are fucking brilliant. I thought maybe it would bring some enlightenment and entertainment to you this weekend, because I'll be too busy raping the bargain aisles at Circuit City to come up with much else in the way of posts.

I shall reap the failure of the capitalist swine as my cousins harvest wheat upon the Collectives in the Ukraine! Tonight we dine upon borscht, for tomorrow we may rot in Hell!

My New Fantasy

To hell with Scarlett Johansson, some jello and a goat, I've got The Bacon Explosion to fantasize about from now on.

Holy Heart-Stopping Rolls of Pork, Batman, even the pictures make my left arm a little tingly! The only thing they've left out of this tasty little dish is the squeal made by the pigs when they offered up their juicy, delicious selves for the various parts of this culinary masterpiece. I think the only appropriate side dish to serve with this would be Scotch Eggs.

Despite the fact that I'm missing a gall bladder, I'd still dive into this delicacy head first. I might eat the thing while sitting on the toilet, but I'd savor every last little drop. Just be sure that they include the words "pork poisoning" in my obit, okay?

Always Cutting Edge

Have you guys heard of this fun game that you and your friends can play when you're bored and/or drunk? Or even bored while drunk? Yeah, it involves taking an actor and, in six names or less, linking him or her to a movie they starred in with Kevin Bacon. I know, crazy, huh? Crazy fun!

Did you know that I can play this game with myself? Not play with myself, mind; I'm Catholic after all, and that's why God created this thing called a "wife". Am I right or am I right?

Anyway, I'll bet you didn't know that I used to light up the stage with my friendly visage, perfect enunciation, and projectile voicing. Ironically, usually after a stage production, I'd get to the projectile vomiting at the cast party, but those are stories for another day. Or right now, if I'm boring you. Heh. If.

I know that you might not believe me, but some of my stage credits include "Angry Townsperson" from "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", "The Russian Cop with an Irish Accent" from "The Good Doctor", "Another Policeman" from "Boys from Syracuse", and "An Amalgamation of Seven Roles Lumped into One Middle Management Character That We Called 'Marty Party'" from "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" among many others. I could throw in "That Guy Who Was Nowhere Near as Funny as Steve Giles and Will Shannon But Still Funnier Than Roger in the Improv Troupe", but I don't want to brag. That last one even netted me a whole mess of Townie Groupies. It's true. Pathetically sad and something that I don't like to admit, but true.

Anyway, back to this whole crazy Kevin Bacon thing. I just thought I'd prove to you that I am within six degrees of him. In my Marty Party role, I shared the stage with Charles Barrett III, who was 'Air Force NCO' in Thirteen Days with Kevin Costner, who was in a movie called JFK along with...*gasp*...could it be...Kevin Bacon?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I realize that's less than six connections, but I'm lazy and wanted to show you just how important I am in only four connections. Badassosity, thy name is Jenks.

Feel free to shower me with undergarments and boob shots.

In case that's not enough for you, there's also this game out there where you link yourself to the King of Spain through handshakes, and once again I was playing with myself (notice how thick my glasses are). The awesomeness of this is that there's two ways I can link myself to the King of Spain:

Option One: I once shook Dain Fife's hand, who shook Bob Knight's hand, who went hunting pheasants with the King of Spain. Funny story, that. Apparently, Bob decided not to shoot the birds that were for the King. See, Bob Knight is a humble man.

Option Two: This one is my favorite. My college buddy, David, is something like fifth or seventh in line to inherit the crown of Spain. Yeah, who knew that some schlub from Da Region in Indiana had royal blood coursing through his veins. Well, if you met David, you would know right away. But, I shook his hand once, and he shook his dad's hand, and his dad shook his uncle's hand...and you get the picture. The best part of this story is that, one time in college, I was relating this whole scenario to my mom, and I offered up the "You know, if we were to bump off the King of Spain and the six guys after him, David would inherit himself a whole country!" My mom, however, grew concerned, not so much that we were suggesting regicide, but she gravely offered: "Oh, don't kill the King of Spain. He could be the Anti-Christ."

Yes, you read it correctly: my mom told me NOT to take out the Anti-Christ. And that's just a peek into the hilarity I call "my childhood".

My Band Name: Seized Chorizo

With Stephanie, the substitute teacher over at Rider's Block, searching for a new band name, I inadvertently stumbled upon one of my own (though, I do like Stephanie's idea of Sara's Gone Rogue). That would be Seized Chorizo.

The source is this article:

McALLEN, Texas — Customs inspectors scored the makings of a barbecue when a 21-year-old South Texas woman declared several soiled baby diapers at a U.S.-Mexico border crossing.

Suspicious of the chunky diapers, inspectors with U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the international bridge in Hidalgo found several links of spicy pork sausage, or chorizo, inside. The diapers had been folded to look soiled, according to a customs agency statement.

The Mission resident, who was not identified after the Friday night incident, was fined $300 and her chorizo was seized.

Being that I'm not much of an international traveler, I wonder, is it absolutely necessary to declare soiled diapers at the border? I thought it was birds and plants (and, apparently, sausage), but then, I'm not sure since the only foreign land I've ventured to is Ohio. I've never had chorizo, but since I celebrate the pig and all its deliciousness here quite often, I have to say that anything that can be described as "spicy pork sausage" is well worth the effort of folding a half-dozen diapers over themselves in order to look used. Although, I do wonder how much chorizo $300 would have garnered at the local Piggly Wiggly.

Just so you know, my daughter's godmother is from Mission, TX. The next time I talk to her, in between questions about chupacabras attacks, I'll have to ask her about the chorizo from Hidalgo and whether it's worth soiling my diapers over.