I had a package of spicy turkey sausage links in the fridge. As dinner approached, I dug through the pantry and crisper, looking for some sort of combo to put in front of the family tonight. I decided to slice the sausage and saute' it with onion, garlic, bell pepper, and a can of crushed tomatoes, and serve the whole mess over rice.

I started the rice, chopped the onion, garlic and peppers and started them cooking in olive oil. I grasped the first sausage and slapped it down on the cutting board. I guess my knife was on the dull side, since each attempt to cut slices resulted in sausage splooging out the end of the casing.

Okay, I'm immature, because I started giggling and saying "ew!" to myself. The kids tend to leave little regurgitated balls of casing on their plates anyway, so I figured I would just chop the turkey into the pan and cook it up freestyle. Seizing the sausage, I held it upright over the pan and began to squeeze it out of the casing. Hah! Hahahaha. Hoo. Hmm. Okay. As the little chunks of sausage dropped from the casing into the pan with audible plops, I tried to keep it together. Ha! Hee! Hoo!

I rinsed my hands and grabbed sausage number two. There had to be a less, uh, evocative way to take the sausage out of the casing. I grasped the top of the sausage firmly and slid the casing down the length. I took one look at the drooping sausage and the slimy casing...bah! Hah! Heeee!

Dinner on the wild side.