Ham and Murder

I've been holding onto a gift certificate for a honey-baked ham since Christmas, waiting for a good opportunity to use it. The company I work for seems to tailor their gifts to the needs of families and not to single people. Or at least not single people of the non-obese or gluttonous variety. Really, it's hard to finish off a gigantic ham by oneself. Yes it can be done, but it's hard.

I've been waiting for occasions all year to use the ham, but when opportunities had arisen, the certificate was nowhere to be found. (Well, it was SOMEWHERE to be found, but if it wants to hide under piles of junk in a kitchen drawer, it should first state its intentions). Every once in a while it would turn up again, but by then I had neither the time nor the willpower to plan an elaborate party. I actually almost brought it with me last week when I was invited to a Seder dinner. Thankfully I realized the fullness of my stupidity before I could embarrass myself. That would have been good. I can see it now:

"Hi everyone, sorry I'm late, I had to stop by and pick up this big juicy hunk of dead pig. I know it violates your religion and everything, but it's honey glazed. HONEY GLAZED!"

No, that would not have gone over well. Still, I kept waiting for a special occasion. So when I stumbled across this "How to Host a Murder" game, I thought: perfect. Cheesy costumed role-play and delicious pork. A winning combination. And so I planned it, invited 7 friends, and collected my ham.

One has to accept a certain degree of comfortable geekiness with these things. It all comes together like a high school drama improv game. You're assigned a character, you dress up, you attempt an accent, you fail miserably. The game was set in a 1920s Chicago speakeasy and in the beginning we were moderately successfully with the correct accents, but in the end we ran the gamut of bad impersonations, from British whore to New York urchin, until we inexplicably all settled into Southern accents of privilege. WTF?

The point is, we ate the ham and it was fantastic. And the game was a blast, turns out. I wouldn't at all be opposed to doing something like it again. Maybe next year, next ham.


P.S. I was a golfer -- puffy pants, cap, and argyle socks.