Thursday, July 5, 2012

A Rotisserie Chicken Led Me Down a Weird Path Tonight

Tonight, I did what many people do on their way home each day and stopped at the grocery store to buy our dinner. And like most people (I think), I changed my mind about what we were eating while walking the aisles.

The rotisserie chickens had just finished cooking and they smelled great.  One chicken to go.

After I got home and started to get the meat off the chicken, all I could think about was one of my favorite books The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls.  If you haven't read it--GO READ IT NOW!  Anyway, it's the author's memoir of how she grew up, in a less than privileged (or safe) environment.  As she recounts some incidents that seem horrible in their neglect, abuse and / or poverty, you sometimes find yourself laughing with her at the absurdity of the situations.

One of my favorite quotes from the book comes when she is telling about the time she is invited over to another girl's house.  The girl was the daughter of the "town whore", Ginnie Sue.  Jeannette couldn't pass up the invitation to see inside a whore's house, so she gladly accepts the invitation.

The house wasn't gaudy like she expected, but she was thrilled to see a big, cooked chicken on the table.  Ginnie Sue asks Jeannette if she knows how to pick a chicken clean and Jeannette assures her that she can.  And her chicken-picking skills impress Ginnie Sue because she tells her that is the best chicken-picking she's ever seen.

Jeannette spent a lot of her childhood hungry, so the important lesson she took away from her day at Ginnie Sue's house is one of my favorite quotes:  "One thing about whoring:  It put chicken on the table."

So, naturally, as I'm up to my elbows in rotisserie chicken, all I can think about is "One thing about whoring...."

And unlike Jeannette, I can't pick a chicken clean.  Exhibit A:

Chicken as picked as it will get 
I don't think that is a skill that I ever learned.  And I'm OK with that.

There are lots of things that I saw my grandmothers and mom do, however, (like chicken-picking....you knew that I would get to my point eventually) that I wish that I knew how to do and I wonder if it's too late.  For example:

  1. Make biscuits using Crisco
  2. Quilt
  3. Can vegetables
  4. Sew on a sewing machine
None of these things are necessary to daily life, I know this, but I think that I would feel a little more connected to the generations that came before me if I could do these things.

And I would be more prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse.

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