78/76/72/71

I have invested heavily in tuna fish. How heavily? I was down to a mere 34 cans, and in a panic the other day.

This didn’t become a big issue until a couple of weeks ago. I found two cans sitting on the kitchen counter, looking like a grizzly bear had broken into the house, and crushed and squeezed the life and fish meat out of those cans. The lid was crushed into the middle. The sides had what looked like paw and nail marks.

They were empty, sort of.

Veteran crime reporter that I am, I hunted down the story.

It seems the gut of a certain 17-year-old, who shall remained otherwise unidentified, had started growling during the night, and he responded by attacking the tuna fish cans with a big, ailing, old, right-handed can opener. You know, the kind with shiny, black rubber handles?

The 17-year-old, like yours truly, is a southpaw.

I’ve been using right-handed can openers for … ever. So, I showed him how to work one. Truth be told, that can opener’s been on its last legs for years.

To make a short story long, the kid has discovered tuna fish salad.

I’ve of course occasionally made it, and forced it on him over the years, but he suddenly has an insane passion for it, almost as bad as the aliens and canned cat food in the picture, District 9.

He has since mastered the can opener, but you how 17-year-olds eat.

I was down to 34 cans (solid white and chunk light), or so I thought, and I went to the supermarket formerly known as Waldbaum’s, and picked up 11 cans one day, and 13 the next—Starkist chunk light, at .99 a can. (Starkist’s has apparently been running campaigns, now for solid white, now for chunk light, for weeks.) Then I found a forgotten cache of 20 cans of Starkist chunk light in a kitchen cabinet—the kind that are wrapped in plastic as four packs? They look very nice, but they’re still just chunk light. I think they went for $3.99 for each four-pack.

So, that got me back up to 78, a career high. But that was Wednesday. Today, it’s Sunday, and my Tuna stocks are down to 71, and falling like a rock. And it’s not just the 17-year-old—Tuna Madness has hit The Boss, too!

Please hit the “donate” button at the top, and make a generous donation, so that I may feed the tuna monsters!

I thank you, and your posterity will, too!

Sincerely,

Nicholas Stix