The Oracle Service Humor Archives' Deluxe Guide to Fruitcake ------------------------------------------------------------- As many of you already know, the holiday season is again fast approaching. Now the holiday season brings us many joyful events such as fat people in red suits bringing us lots of presents and money, as well as deep spiritual events such as eating lots of turkey. However, beware this holiday season, since there could already be a fearsome danger lurking underneath your tree, or on your table, or just about anywhere. No, we are not talking about Newt Gingrich, Bob Packwood, or Rush Limbaugh, although that's not saying that Rush isn't lurking on your table. We are talking about fruitcake. Through extensive surveys and a highly scientific method, we have determined that there are ways to protect yourself from this holiday menace, and indeed, to turn it to your advantage. Therefore, we have compiled a list of things to do with your Christmas fruitcake. This list covers every aspect of a fruitcake. Like Spam, fruitcakes seem to have a loyal following, in some cases even moved to write poetry about these enigmatic enemies of the holiday season. There are anecdotes, and of course the good old uses like an anchor and a doorstop. We'll start out this bulletin with a history of the fruitcake and follow it with some important warnings from the Department of Defense. Then we will explore every aspect of the fruitcake. Read this for your own safety and the safety of your friends and family. -Steven A. Willoughby Oracle Service Humor Archives INDEX: -------- I. History of the Fruitcake II. Letter from the Department of Defence III. Uses for a Fruitcake IV. Fruitcake Philosophy V. A Useful Recipe for Fruitcake VI. Fruitcake Immortalized in Verse VII. Expert Opinions on the Use of Fruitcake VIII. Personal Driving Experience With Fruitcake IX. Good Old Aunt Edna X. A New Generation of Fruitcake I. HISTORY OF THE FRUITCAKE ----------------------------- The Oracle Service Humor Mailing List, after years of effort, gave up in their quest to find the origin of fruitcake. Just then, a message was received and we rushed to make the fruitcake history complete. They purpose of the fruitcake was developed over the centuries. It was orginally designed to be a way to store seeds for farming until the next season. Farmers would take the seeds from their fruits and bake them into a very hard cake. Then they would wrap the cake and store it away until the next year. In the spring, the farmers would then take out the cake, bury it, and the cake would degrade, releasing the seeds. They would quickly have an entire orchard. This was all fine and dandy until the dust bowl came about in the 1930's. Farmers planted the fruitcakes but nothing happend so they packed up and left cakes in the ground. Many years passed, and the cakes dwelled underground until one day in the early 60's when a young boy dug some up and took them into his grandmother house and let the by the steam room, and when he came back he noticed that the cakes had become moist and the fruit bloomed into little minature apples, pears, apricots, dates, etc. He was so suprised that he took them into the basement and placed them in the freezer. When his grandmother was ready to go to church on Christmas Eve, she went and got the apple bread cakes she had made from the freezer and took them to church for fellowship. However, grandmother was almost totally blind, and she had accidentally grabbed the wrong cake. People loved her new cake and asked what she called it. She told them Apple Bread Cake. They said that they tasted more than that. She said, after tasting a piece, that their was more than just apples in the cakes So Mrs. Buffet called them fruitcakes, after all that is what they started as. She liked her new creation so much that she and the ladies at the church started to make the cakes and send them to the troops. It turned into a big business. They have produced them ever since. Mrs. Buffet's grandson was so proud of her that he couldn't tell her the truth. He was jealous of the money she was making off of his discovery, though. So after Mrs. Buffet passed away, little Jimmy Buffet wrote a song about his discovery in tribute to his grandmother. This is the story and history of the fruit cake. II. IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ------------------------------------------------------ A letter from The Pentagon via the Oracle Service: Dear America, As this holiday comes near once again, and you recieve that ever-so favorite Fruit Cake from your blessed in-laws... we ask you to think twice before trowing them away. As you know, Congress is in the middle of another heated "Balanced Budget" debate, and William Clinton will not allow any cuts in Health Care and Schooling... so is indirectly attacking The Pentagon Budget. However, at the same time he expects us to keep piece in Bosnia... with a smaller budget. Therefore, trying to keep a maintain the US superiority as a military force... we ask that the American public ship their Fruit Cakes to the Pentagon. Our team of engineers are working around the clock for various implementations of these in our weapons of Mass destruction beyond the obvious use of hand-to-hand combat: 1) The little nuts and stale fruit: Are perfect size for the M-16 automatic weapons 2) The Whole fruit Cake is the perfect size for hand-held Bazookas. 3) Our chief engineer has figured out how to make an explosive device (equivalent to a level 4 explosive device) using: Fruit Cake, an Egg Timer and a Stick of Chewing Gum (with wrapper) 4) Gas Warfare: Throwing a Fruit Cake (after a year of marinating) into a closed enemy room, and allowing the alcoholic fumes to engulf the patrons lulling them into a drunken stupor. 5) After proving that Fruit Cake is flamable, we have intergrated Fruit Cakes with our F-16's (replacing the modern day Stinger Missile) for short range dogfighting. In preliminary field testing, the fruit cake actually pentetrated the cockpict glass, the very same glass that was once thought to be shatter resistent... (I guess it is back to the drawing board again) 6) Unfortunately, It has been discovered that using Fruit Cakes with our Stealth Bomber that has proven a bad choice. The once "invisible" predator now shows up on enemy radar since the fumes of the Fruit Cake surround the body of the craft and thus reflect the planes location to every radar known to man. These are our present modes of project "Sticky Buns" in hopes that this will compensate for the upcoming busget cuts. Dear America, we here at The Pentagon are trying to cut our budget to help the Senior Citizens of America and help provide lunches for the youth of America, please help us help you. Sincerly, Secretary of Defense. III. USES FOR A FRUITCAKE ---------------------------- Makes a great topic for the Oracle Service Humor Mailing List's Interactive Humor section! Use it as a door stop. Five words: Assault with a deadly weapon Ground up and switch with foldgers crystals -- see if anyone notices. Can be used as a water conservation device by being placed in the storage tank of your toilet. Put it in your pants, sure fire way to attract women. The Real culprit of all Amtrack derailments is all because of fruitcakes. Mischeivous elves place them on the tracks, and look what happens! One word- REVENGE!!!! Stop inviting him/her (the fruitcake in question) to Christmas dinner Use a hammer and chisel to carve Christmas carol lyrics into the fruitcake. Optionally fill letters with red, green, or white icing. Makes an excellent gift or aid for caroling. "Hey, that's a nice footstool there." Great Christmas gift for the neighbors' annoying pets (or children). If the inlaws send you a fruitcake, and they come to visit, kill them with it. Fruitcakes don't exist, they are like Santa Claus and a balanced budget. You play football with them. This year at Christmas, the US will be dropping fruitcakes instead of bombs. We had a fruitcake replace our US state representitive. They both did the same amount of work though... Anchor Paperweight Former Soviet interrogation instrument Spare tire #1 cause of cracked teeth over the holiday season The true source of Trent Reznor's ( |\| | |/| ) angst A good reason to call in to work sick Comes in handy when you don't have a set of weights nearby Contraceptive device (ain't nobody accepted into a social scene if'n they bring a fruitcake) Got a loose or damaged brick in your fireplace? This oughtta fill in quite nicely. (WARNING: Only fruitcakes of the square persuasion apply. Management not responsible for morons who try to stick the circular fruitcakes in their hearths.) Excellent stocking stuffer (for non-hang stockings only) It's the gift that keeps on giving (and giving and giving and giving.....) Kids're acting up? Whack 'em with one of these. If they're still conscious and start acting up again, threaten to feed it to them. Afraid Uncle Lou is gonna eat all the food again this year? Make sure the fruitcake is the first thing on the table. Bring out the rest of the food after Lou goes running out the door screaming. Betcha Jimmy Hoffa has a couple of 'em strapped to his feet. Grounds for a divorce Too many...fruits...and...nuts. Must reach.....bathroom.....in....time! Ballast Plugging holes in nuclear reactors. Wooly Mammoth hockey puck Use as bricks to make your new house with. Biology class dissection party! Knock that pesky visiting Mother-in-Law in the head when she tells too many menopause stories. Cut out eye holes and use as a Halloween costume. Don't worry- it will last the extra ten months because it's built like Schwarzenegger! A New Year's gift for that History professor who failed you on that paper last semester. Three words: Beat your roommate Weapon against intruders. (Jean take note) Decorative Paper Weight. Send it to University, (my father did). Christmas Tree Stand. Curl it, for a terrific work-out. Hollow it out and wear it on your head, excellent hair piece. Use it to fuel your car, it is extremely dense, and can get you a minimum of 75 miles/pound. Pass it on to unwanted guests, they'll get the hint. Spare tire - it will never be flat when you need it. Squirrel Bait - Disclaimer: Bait piles are not allowed on some college campuses. Boat Anchor To keep the vegetables company at the asylum. OOPS, wrong kind of fruitcake. Grind and add water = mortar Personal Flotation Device Recycleable Christmas gift. Use year after year. Slice into circular sections. Hockey Pucks They bounce. Makes great toys for kids. Drop it into the end of a sock and use it to beat carolers. Build a bomb shelter with them in the not-so-fortunate areas of the world Let someone know just how much you dislike them-give them FRUITCAKE Flat tire? - fruitcake to the rescue! Make them thin and you've got a frisbee! Wall decoration Make a wall of them to hang one on! Self defense As a last minute christmas gift for someoen you forgot to buy a present for. Diving brick for lifegaurds.... One of the many assorted ways the mafia can choose to make you 'sleep with the fishes. The cornerstone on your new addition. I think that we should compile all of the fruitcake and send them on over to Oregon, in care of the highway division. I hear that they have a clean and fast way to get rid of large objects... When I make fruitcake, the only use anyone can get out of it is a hockey puck. Maybe not even that. Cut a hole in it and use it for a hemorroid cushion Put it in a time capsule (makes a good snack for the archeaologists in the year 3000) Throw it at your dog Give it to your mother-in-law, and tell her "it's the gift that keeps on giving" Birth Control-- It'll make you sterile! The most obvious use for a fruitcake is to be our commander-in-chief and pretend to lead this country ! Testing the effectiveness of superacids. To hammer nails on "some assembly required" children's gifts. Personal safety device ( throw at attacker) Use to cut diamonds Give it to your dog as a chew toy Build your own fruitcake free weight set!! Low budget building blocks!! Slice off a section to put under that annoying table that wobbles Use it for home plate at you next neighborhood baseball game. Use it to throw a threatining letter through a window. Sign the note "Santa Claus" Paint a face on it claim it is your "pet rock" people will think you are a fruitcake Use to build bomb shelter Put it on the wall, claim it is modern art Use as an anchor for your boat Put the number 42 on it worship it Bust your figure skating compition in the knee. ( refer to Nancy and Tonya incident) Fruitcake makes securing your valuable easy. Chisel out a hole, throw in some jewelry, and spackle over the opening. No one will ever touch it and you know your valuables will be preserved indefinitely. "There ain't no use for a fruitcake. I hate fags." Fruity machinery for coal mining After it goes stale, give it to Hillary Clinton -- it will be the only big and hard thing she gets this Christmas. Throw it in the air and use it to skeetshoot. Collect all the American fruitcakes and drop them on our enemies. Use it as your toddler's toilet training seat. Throw it for distance in the 1998 Winter Olympics. Chock the wheels on your car while you change the oil. Several in the trunk improves traction on snowy roads. Cheap alternative to clay pigeons (skeet shooting). Pothole repair. IV. FRUITCAKE PHILOSOPHY --------------------------- The Oracle has heard many questions from people about fruitcakes. These are a few of the more ponderous... Has anyone ever wondered why they don't call fig newtons fruitcake and Fruitcake Jelly bread? There is a theory that there is really only one fruitcake, that fruitcake has been passed from person to person from the begining of time. The humble fruitcake is indistructable and has an indefinite shelf life. The actually appearance, with or without the decorative frosting is far too intimidating, in my opinion to be considered for consumption. V. A USEFUL RECIPE FOR FRUITCAKE ---------------------------------- Here's a 3 step recipe for the BEST use of a Fruitcake: 1) Nuke it till it gets REAL soft. 2) Take 3 cups of water and add half a cup of milk. 3) Finally, stir the soft-served fruitcake into the milky water to make the most perfect PUKE!! VI. FRUITCAKE IMMORTALIZED IN VERSE -------------------------------------- I like my fruitcake very much, I keep it nice and shiny. And when I leave my fruitcake home, My mom gets loud and whiny. I fit my fruitcake with a wheel, So that I could control it. And four wheels at the bottom, Ones I'm sure will roll it. My cake tops out at 95 When I drive it on the highway. I've got an airbag just in case, The wreck just don't go my way. I took my fruitcake to the carwash, They told me I could not. I couldn't understand just why. Is the water just too hot? I got my fruitcake appraised To see how much it's worth. They said, "We'll give you thirty cents. Have you been this stupid since birth?" I take my fruitcake for a spin, And keep it on even keel. Cuz my fruitcake is worth much more As my good fruitcakemobile! VII. EXPERT OPINIONS ON THE USE OF FRUITCAKE ----------------------------------------------- Fifteen Ideas For Christmas Cheer Using A Fruit Cake By J. M. Know-it-all This article is written in time for the holiday's about the ever popular, ever present, never failing christmas goodie, Ye Ol' Fruit Cake (drum roll if you will)! I recieved many letters last christmas as to what to do with the (three-hundred pound brick) cake and what possible use it could have. Well, aside from the obvious annoyance and disgust produced by the reception of this favorite (I hate you; pass it around so I don't have to eat it) gift, I have made a list of several further uses for "u-no-watt". Now the varying consistency of the cake will lend seperate categories of things to the imaginative. Wet Heavy Dough Fruit Cake (only $19.95; call now!) 1. Put it in a paper sack set it on Old Man "I Hate Everybody" 's doorstep, light it on fire, and ring the doorbell. 2. Take it to work throw up on the ceiling above "I -heart- (love) to suck up to Mr. Witherford" 's desk and watch it drop on his six hundred dollar suit and alligator shoes. 3. Mold it into a brain shape and walk up to the blond bank teller (who never fails to make your transaction take an hour) and say, "Like, excuse me, you seemed to have dropped your brain." 4. Throw it in the toilet after your friends model girlfriend does her duty and show him the "big pile" she left. (And then when he dumps her, pick her up!) 5. Then of course, there's always, fruit cake your favorite police officer and run like hell. Harder Than Diamond Fruit Cake (produced by Joes' Masonry) 1. Snazzy paper weight. 2. Put it in the back of your truck as counter weight for winter traction. 3. Save them up and brick in your new fireplace. 4. Throw it through your neighbors window when he blast his nauseating Neil Diamond music and then blame it on "those damn kids". 5. Bean that punk paper boy with it the next time he throws your paper in the snowbank. Half-n-Half Fruit Cake (Hard Candy Shell / Soft Chewy Center) 1. Send it air mail to an Ethiopian and see how long it takes to be returned. 2. Treat it like a water balloon and drop it out the window on that damn bell-ringing Santa Clause. 3. Give it to the church and then send photo copies of their nasty 'no thank you' letter to the pope. 4. Treat it like a whoopie cushion and set on the CEO's seat... right before the big meeting. 5. Wrap it up and stick it in Santa's stocking for all the times he gave you that f____ing coal for Christmas. I hope this list has been helpful in finding useful and insightful things to use Mother's World Famous Fruit Cake for. And I hope that your Christmas is as jolly as I sure mine will be (HOHOHO)! VIII. PERSONAL DRIVING EXPERIENCE WITH FRUITCAKE --------------------------------------------------- Fruitcake reminds me of my poor college days. Got a fruitcake for Christmas one year. I put it into the trunk of my 14 year old Honda Civic and forgot about it. A few years later, driving down a gravel road in the middle of nowhere, one of my bald tires blew. Those Civic tires were pretty small in diameter. Not much bigger around than a fruitcake. I hammered four bolt holes through it with the jack wrench and slipped it on to the axel. It was sticky but solid. Gotta admit I wasn't sure what to expect when I put the car in gear. I was careful at first -- driving slow and all. But by the time I got back on the highway, I'd forgotten about the cake on the axel. Car drove bumpy all the time anyways. I must of been doing 70 when I came to the first major bend in the highway. The turn began okay, but a few moments into it some of the candied fruit started breaking off the cake. In seconds I was losing traction and drifting off the road. The car skidded to a stop without accident, but the experience scared me enough that I hitched a ride to a gas station and got a real tire. I kept the fruitcake. Wrapped it up so that the bugs wouldn't eat it too bad and left it in the trunk of the car. A few years after that I gave it away as a gift or something. IX. GOOD OLD AUNT EDNA ------------------------- Aunt Edna's Fruitcakes The packages arrived two weeks after Christmas. We knew they were coming, and dreaded their arrival. They were Aunt Edna's Fruitcakes. Let me give you a little history. For the last 24 years, my Aunt Edna has given a fruitcake to every member of our family. And I mean every member. My brother has eight kids, from two marriages. He received 10 fruitcakes a year. When she made them, we don't really know. We just smiles, said, "Thank you," and filed them away in the pantry with the ones from previous years. This past spring, Aunt Edna died. We think that I must have offended her in some way, because she left my wife and I all of the fruitcakes that she had baked so far. That wouldn't have been bad, except for how it had been worded. The will read, "To my darling nephew Edgar, and his lovely wife Elanor, I leave all of the fruitcakes that I have baked." At the reading, the rest of the family smiled. I cried. I took a deep breath, let it out, and opened the crates. As expected, there was every fruitcake that Aunt Edna had ever baked. I guess that I can build that fallout shelter now. X. A NEW GENERATION OF FRUITCAKE ---------------------------------- Picard turned to look at Number One as they made orbit around Beta Maximus 3. "All quiet out there, Captain." said Riker as he scanned his arm console. "Too quiet," said Picard, as he stood and turned to face Lieutenant Worf at the tactical station. "Any thing on sens...." The ship was rocked by a blast of disruptor fire as a Romulan Warbird decloaked right on top of them. Picard was thrown to the floor, yelling "Shields up, return fire!" "Phasers inoperative! Forward shields down, Captain! Unable to compensate!" yelled Worf over the wail of alert sirens. "Helm! Get us out of here, Warp 6!" "Helm not responding. Going to backup systems." The ship groaned and rocked around them as another blast hit their shields. "Navigational deflectors down. We can't go to Warp without them! Torpedo tubes fused by disruptor fire." A bridge console exploded in a shower of sparks, sending the helmsman flying. "All navigational controls down. Aft shields down, Captain!" yelled Riker as he tried to stay standing despite the pitching and rolling of the deck. "What do we have left to fire!" yelled the Captain as another blast struck down in the engineering hull. "Nothing, sir! I suggest..." said Data, but he was cut off as another blast tore through the saucer section immediately next to the bridge. Emergency force fields popped into place to keep the bridge from depressurizing. "LaForge to bridge! I have an idea!" "Whatever it is, make it so! We don't have time..." yelled Picard before another blast knocked him against a wall, unconscious. --- Far below in the Engineering room, LaForge hit his communicator again. "LaForge to transporter room! Emergency transport - my quarters!" And he dissolved in a flash of light. --- Rematerializing in his room, he scanned around for the package even as his atoms were still being reassembled. He dashed to the table and grabbed his mother's fruitcake, and bolted through the door barely clearing the opening doors. Running at top speed, LaForge nearly fell several times on his way to the lab as the hull was pounded again and again by Romulan disruptor fire. He was surprised the ship was holding up. Once in the lab, he grabbed a project he had been working on, a few pieces of equipment and tossed them and the fruitcake on a worktable. Working quickly, he made a few adjustments to the project (A new homing torpedo small enough to be carried on a shuttlecraft), added a containment pod, and bolted for the emergency waste disposal chute. He stuffed the fruitcake into the containment pod, slid home the catch, pressed the arm button, and dropped it in the chute. "Bridge! Any minute now!" he yelled over the alert sirens and explosions. --- On the bridge, the Romulan Warbird turned for another pass. Totally helpless, without the ability to move or fire, Riker felt sure the next pass would destroy them. "Computer, initiate auto-destruct sequence. Picard Alpha-Alpha-1-Alpha!", Picard said as he rubbed the bump on his head. "Auto-destruct requires concurrence of first officer." "I concur! Initiate auto-destruct..." but Riker didn't need to finish the command, as they all stared wide-eyed as a small object struck the Warbird on it's forward shields. The shields flared defiantly, trying to hold off the force of the blow, but immediately broke down with a final flash. Then the object struck the hull of the ship, caving in an area near the bridge. They lost sight of the object as it tore through deck after deck of the Warbird, finally blasting through the other side. The Romulan ship shook once, twice, and then seemed to disintegrate. Pieces of it blasted off, leaving gaping holes, and finally, the ship was destroyed in the final blast as it's antimatter containment shields broke down. Cheers broke out at the sight of empty space where just a minute before the ship had been about to kill them. "Well done, Mr. LaForge, Well Done." said Picard over his comm link as the alert sirens stopped.