Day 4 & 5: In Which Much is Revealed

I'd like to pretend that doing two cans in one meal was some kind of super awesome idea to make an interesting post. No, mostly what it was was laziness. The other part was fear. I spoke a bit about this yesterday, but this Can Game shit is taxing. Every day you're staring down the barrel of a gun. In the early days, we could hope that we might get something delicious. Something from a named animal, perhaps. Maybe a fruit? But no more. After the first 3 days, that hope is dead. Killed off by snouts and lips and things harvested from caves by grave men.

Yet we're only halfway through. We're not going to be the ones to puss out on the Can Game midfield. So we continue. Therefore, after our day of pizza delivery respite, we have to knock out two cans. The plan? Open 'em, throw 'em together, and (if necessary) eat the result weeping over the sink.

The Can Game has taught us many lessons, the first of which is that Mike and Sara do not have kindness in their hearts (or hearts at all, really). Instead they have small withered organs in their chests that pump noxious ichor. Armed with this knowledge, we hit up the store trying to get some post-traumatic-cangame supplies.

Cheese, Candy, and Yogurt.

I picked eggs and cheese, hoping that I could drown out whatever fermented meef we were going to have to eat. Meg? She chose pickles...

She has chosen poorly.

Because nothing takes the taste of despair out like more yuck, amirite? Anyway, it was go time. We picked our two cans for the night, put clothespins on our noses, and said a prayer.

Dear infant Jesus: Protect us from these ratspines and fishfeet we are about to recieve.

Time for the big reveal. Can #1:

Well, clearly some kind of ankle.

Well, it's not the best looking perfectly normal beast I've ever seen, I'll grant you. But all in all, it could be worse.

Meg: "It smells like catfood." Me: "That's not so bad!"

As an aside, can I just mention what a sad state of affairs it is that the above picture fills me with a feeling of relief? I look at that, contemplate putting it in my mouth, and think: "You know, this isn't the worst thing I've eaten in the last 24 hours." Ponder that for a bit, friends.

See those taste-test faces? It's like when you punch your siblings so much that they flinch every time you move your hand.

Relatively bland miscellaneousmeat? At this point in the week, that is comforting. I'm actually a little excited now about this meal. I can find it in my heart to believe that if I had actually seen the label for this can, it would have contained less than four chemicals known to cause cancer in laboratory animals.

It would have been better if they had removed the hair and skin first, but whatev.

Easy enough. We'll make omelets (I knew egg and cheese would be the hero). We had some month-old smoked sausage which we probably wouldn't eat under normal circumstances...but we're midway through the cangame here. Any Normal White American Food is going to be superedible, regardless of age.

Left: Sausage. Right: Probably seahorse.

All fried up, it looked pretty tasty.

Well, provided your taste buds have been so de-sensitized that even a completely unknown meaty substance looks wonderful.

Can #2, though. Can #2 was a different story. A story you wouldn't read to your kids. The kind of story you remember years after and think "Wow, that was a creepy story."

You have the balls to bitch about gravy when you send us concentrated darkness?

What is that? Is it motor oil? Motor oil may not be so bad, I guess. I mean, it's poisonous, but maybe it will numb the mouth as you eat it. Maybe it's the Black Blood of Kali. I could certainly use a good Black Sleep right about now.

Om-nom She-bai, Om-nom She-bai

Time for a closer look. I start to drain what I think is black liquid out of the can over the strainer to catch whatever terror lies beneath. Instead, this happens:

Nothing.

That's right, nothing comes out. About a teaspoon of black goo comes out, and that's it. Maybe it's scared? Is there something in there holding on to the sides of the can? I apply some wiggle, and then it happens.

No one should have to hear the sound this made coming out of the can.

It's a mass of black slime, perfectly retaining the shape of the can. I flip it into a bowl, where it (no joke) continues to flop around for several seconds. I take a couple of minutes to scratch my head. Then I poke it. Nothing happens. Hum. So I bravely pick it up and take a huge bit----no, I'm totally kidding. I cut off a piece and fed it to the dog.

Who promptly sniffed it, sneezed, and then shook his head. That's right. Sara and Mike finally found a substance that the dog wouldn't even consume. We actually shot a video of this, where he literally smells it and shakes his head "no fucking way guys, I don't care how many times you tell me to 'get' it." Unfortunately, Blogger and Blackberry phones do not play well together. I cut it in half and flipped the reject into the disposal.

Where it refused to die. I cut it with a knife like twelve times to get it to go down the drain.

No help for it, but to man up and smell. Not to bad, really. It mostly smelled like old tires and tea. Some kind of galvanized teaslime. It also had no taste. You put a slice in your mouth and chew and get nothing. Then after you swallow, you just smell it again. A re-smell.

Heating had no effect.

It sort of sat there in the pan and whistled for about 10 minutes. Then, to my total shock, it did not explode. It didn't do much of anything. I was hoping that it would dissolve. My plan was to maybe put a fuckton of sugar in it and put it on ice cream. Meg wasn't too thrilled about sacrificing some of her precious ice cream supply, but it turned out to be moot. The substance was inert. I was completely stumped at this point. Then a bolt of brilliant inspiration hit me.

That bolt was Meg telling me we should make bubble tea out of it.

Bubble tea, if you're never had it, is basically iced tea mixed with milk that has random goo balls in it. They call these 'bubbles', perhaps because 'gooball' isn't really a marketable word. Normally, those 'bubbles' are made of tapioca pearls. In our case, we had a gooey tea-tasting mass that would have to do.

It seemed that no matter how much we chopped, there was still more.

Put slime in jars. Pour half tea and half milk into a shaker. Shake well.

Mug for the camera.

Add the stuff to the jars, and enjoy! The final meal wasn't bad. Decent omelets, decent approximation of Bubble tea. All in all, I'll consider it a victory.

Two cans left. If I know Sara and Mike, they'll be the worst of the lot. I know the cans that they have left are certainly no prize. Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion!