The Sopranos is a show about a woman who cannot calm her husband down, no matter how much ham is in the fridge. He is absolutely furious with crime, this big tall husband, and his name is Mr. Don’t You Do That Bathrobe. You are Carmela Soprano, and your mouth is falling-down sad into your neck. Your job is to say to your husband his most important problem, and then describe the meat in the fridge, pork only. You know already the things most unbearable to you. Name the ham. My husband is the pig who won’t listen. I’ll tell him everything, I’ll tell him the ham’s name, I’ll shout in the kitchen, the big cold room where no one listens.

“You know what you are, Tony? You’re [birth month], that’s what you are. There’s [birth day of the week] in the fridge.”

January — unfaithful

February — neglectful

March — absolutely without pity in your heart, Tony

April — afraid of your mother

May — paranoid

June — take some sort of pleasure in telling the sort of lies that you know anyone with half a brain would see through, I swear to God I think you want me to know about these women

July — a shit Catholic

August — sacrilegious

September — plausible deniability, that’s the word I couldn’t think of in June, that’s what you want, Tony, you want plausible deniability

October — hopeless

November — mentally diseased

December — a good father

Monday — Proscuitto cotto (but you’ll pronounce it “Boat-y-goat”)

Tuesday — Bresaola (but you’ll pronounce it “Brezh-ricola”)

Wednesday — Ciauscolo (but you’ll pronounce it “Chow-chow-scow-hound”)

Thursday — Guanciale (but you’ll pronounce it “Ginny-chomper”)

Friday — Tyrolean speck (but you’ll pronounce it “Tyrannosaurus smart-off”)

Saturday — Ventricina (but you’ll pronounce it “Ven-trixie-pixie”)

Sunday — Finocchiona (but you’ll pronounce it “Pinball-smarmy”)

You know what you are, Tony? You’re hungry for something, but it ain’t Sopressa Vicentina, and I don’t think it ever was.

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