SUBJECTIVE STUFF

I don't like Spam. The e-mail kind. Never open it.  Always delete it.  Always.  Obviously it's the email version of snail mail junk mail.  Since it's very easy to assume that all people think exactly like me, I automatically think everyone hates it too.  But then I remembered my mom.  This is the woman who reads obituaries word for word out loud, also all the police reports, court news, editorials, marriage announcements, sale flyers stuck in the newspaper and every piece of junk mail that piles in her mailbox.  I lived with them last year when moving back home to the area.  Now when I get my mail, I go through it at that moment, sifting to the shredder or trash that which is crap, opening bills and putting them where they belong (delaying paying them as long as humanly possible!).  Not my mother.  No, the mail is belabored, strung out, savored even.  Things lay on the kitchen counter by the 2 foot stack of phone books.  Junk mail is lovingly handled and some of it saved.  I mean you never know when you will need a toilet riser, something from "Blair" catalog (fashions for the elderly fashioned impaired), address labels, coins from around the world, china dolls perched on a stand, or a free vacation if you call 1-800-vacationstocheatyou.  I giggled over it many times while living there and fought the urge to scoop it all up and throw it away :)   But, then I realized - everything and I do mean everything, is subjective in life.  Everything, including spam mail - both the email and mail carrier versions.  Speaking of Spam - the other kind of SPAM, the 1940's canned potted meat by-product.  I have a very good friend and his wife who absolutely love SPAM.  It is mind blowing that there are those SPAM lovers out there who perpetuate the ongoing manufacturing of a WWII staple.  One year for Christmas I got them a SPAM cookbook.  I know can you barely believe they still mass produce SPAM, let alone publish a cookbook about ways to cook with it as well.  We live in an amazingly strange world!  The most disturbing recipe in it was a green Jello mold with chunks of SPAM congealed in it.  Now wouldn't that just festive up your holiday table!  My friends love SPAM so much they have created new and exciting other worldly recipes; fried for sandwiches, casseroles, even sliced thin with seasoning and dried in the oven creating a tasty treat named by them called, "Sperky".  I have tried all their creations over the years.  Now mind you they aren't horrible and, the "sperky" was even borderline good, but SPAM, well no thanks.  Again, how subjective is potted meat products, email spam, and junk mail!  Life is very subjective isn't it?  What do you think:)