There Is A Reason Being Called Chicken Aint Good, And Other Musings For Your Internetly Perusal

I have been pondering all night on what I should tell you about my day. What did I do today that in the retelling would make you feel all sparkly inside? What was so great and so fantastic and so filled with magic that I would be selfish to withhold? What happened to me today that will so bless and inspire the Internet world that I will have done my good deed for my lifetime and will die in peace someday knowing that the world was a better place for what I had typed on my poor Mac (which I am pretty sure is going to give up the ghost at any minute and then what will I do with myself, I mean, what?) I am going for the gusto here today! This is not just for entertainment, you know! This is important stuff!

Should I wax poetic for you about how I happened to cash in my last FREE DRINK coupon at the McDonalds today, right smack dab on the nose of the last-day-to-cash-it-in deadline? It could be a life changer, that story! It was like the heavens opened and God said, Natalie, Thou Shalt Have Soda! God would totally say something like that to me.

Truthfully it was a stroke of pure dumb luck. I was scrambling to assemble an assortment of doodads and odds and ends that I needed for some errands and then there it was, peeking out at me from the bottom of the reusable grocery bag that always forgets to come inside with me when I do my grocery shopping. It said FREE DRINK and I went, OH REALLY? and then I declared, YOU ARE COMING WITH ME! and then the lady at the drive-thru shouted THIS IS THE LAST DAY! and I said NO CHEESING?! And then I danced a little dance in the car while I sipped it and I just knew that things would be okay! This twenty minute episode of my afternoon was enough to make all of my day worthwhile, so I could tell you all about it, and possibly it could change your life? No?

Or I could share with you how I found the perfect go-out-and-run time! Should I tell you about that? I mean, it may not sound as impressive to you as it is unto me, but okay, allow me to lay the groundwork for this discovery first so that you may revel in its incredibleness or not at your own discretion.

Now. As anybody knows, running in the evening is the best. It just is, I'm not going to go into specifics. Okay, I am. Evening running is the best because your muscles are loose and your mind is full to bojangles and because by then you could really use the stress release so you pound it out and take a shower and go to bed and it's like the perfect thing. Evening runs are just the reason for the season. But, sun sets, Daylight Savings, snow, ad infinitum etc, I'm not going to get into it. So. That's out.

Then there's morning runs. Anyone who is anybody will know that mornings are the very worst possible times for running. (Don't even try to talk me out of this one. Okay, go ahead and try. But I am very stubborn, just ask my husband.) Here is why morning runs are the Brad Pitts: you are cranky, your bones haven't fully solidified yet, your muscles are still irked from you sleeping on them all wrong, the cold air is rude, your feet are entirely disconnected from your body and try to scurry off behind you while your shoulders get all hunched up past your forehead. The result is you look like some weird kind of dancing gypsy running all floosy like down the street and not to mention it hurts like what. It does! When I run in the mornings I always keep having to stop and pout and gasp and wonder why the world is trying to kill me, so, that's out.

I'd never tried the glorious 1:30 run just after oatmeal until just today my friends and I have to tell you, life has suddenly found reason. My muscles were just loose enough, it was still light out, I had acquired enough thoughts throughout the morning to sustain 30 minutes of ponderage, my feet stayed solidly connected to my ankles, shoot, everybody was happy. And then I decided the 1:30 run is like the Empire Strikes Back of runs. It's not got to the Ewoks part yet and it also has the better theme music. So. As you can see I hardly need to say too much more about it here, and now that I'm done I'm pretty sure that's not what I was meant to tell you for your life to change because actually that was pretty pointless, so let's move on.

Maybe what I really should be telling you about is my sushi date?

I allowed my Holbsdude to take me on a real schfancy dinner date tonight on account of he had some making up to do if you follow (do you follow?), and while seated and waiting for our waitress to take our order I got to practice my best Randy Lovin act with the Korean menu items. We lived in Korea for a few years when I was a kid and I can never see the world Bulgogi without hearing my dad's voice in my head and picturing the way he pulls his chin back on the "bul." So I got to Bulgogi at the table under my breath to my heart's content while my patient Holbsgogi made the order. Rainbow Roll, tempura, some tuna for me because I looooove the mercury (so tasty!), and then for something new, a hand roll and an order of japchae.

And that is when I finally met the sushi of my nightmares, my sushi nemesis if you will, my sushi antihero. It kicked my butt and made me gag and I started to question my ability to do brave things anymore. This is not an exaggeration! It. Was. Bleak. Suddenly I was a hack, a total sushi hack, and I felt so ashamed. I wanted to cry.

My life as I knew it was gone, changed in an instant thanks to some dumb sushi chef. I would no longer be able to brag about my culinary heroism. My tales of taste bud dominance would no longer impress or inspire! I would be no more the adventuresome food girl who happily gulps kimchi like it's no big thing and drowns tacos in the spiciest of habanero. No, those days were gone, fading into the distance, while my spicy tuna laughed in my face and called me names. I had entered into the realm of the wussy. I could see it, pale and nerdy on my horizon. I gulped and faced the new life ahead of me, resigned and determined to face it like a big girl, this new life of inhalers and pocket protectors and sun block and allergies and "my delicate constitution!" and basically I was becoming my husband. I put down my chop sticks in defeat. I sighed heavy.

Then I entered the angry stage of my grief. I mean, who in their right mind serves three pounds of ground up spicy tuna wrapped in the saltiest gag-inducing nori wrap of ever and calls that food? I mean, I almost died. No really I almost died!

Then came acceptance, as I remembered we can't really afford sushi these days anyway. So.

Well, that obviously wasn't it either.

I think what I will tell you instead is a little ditty about the stinky raw chicken that I've been too chicken to throw away. It is the most interesting thing about my day, after all, now that I really stop to consider things. So I bought this stupid chicken last week for a recipe which turned out delicious but didn't require use of all of him, so I had these extra chicken legs left over that I'd decided to save. I thought naively that I could learn to get over my chicken aversion, and also think of something glamorous and chickeny and tasty that would wow my husband into thinking I was some kind of goddess. You know, kill two chickens with one stone. But I didn't ever use this chicken because the fact is I just hate chicken. Because chicken is the rudest.

(One time when we were dating the Holbs got salmonella from an Artic Circle chicken sandwich and puked and puked and puked while I stalwartly decided to love him anyway and bring him Gatorades even when the threat of vomit explosions were at their highest and vomit and Natalie go together like Bert and Ernie and girl muppets. See? Rude.)

So there was this chicken flesh still rotting slowly in the fridge, dead and clammy and stinky. I mean it was fresh and completely edible but every time anybody opened the fridge an odor would emerge into the air like unto a waft of lusty raw chicken farts. I don't like chicken. I don't like chicken! I'm sorry but I just hate chicken!

So I checked with The Holbs.

Can I throw this away? I asked, feeling ashamed for considering throwing away perfectly good nasty chicken body parts when there are starving people in China. (Are there anymore?)

Better do something with it! he advised.

I pondered my options.

Chicken noodle soup a la barf?

Chicken and dumplings and retching?

Chicken enchiladas, smothered in e. coli? Or whatever?

I mean, The Holbs likes chicken but guys, he wouldn't even make me a Crystal Lite tonight, so . . .

So I threw those mother effers out. I did it. I took matters into my own hands! I took back ownership of my fridge, and my destiny! Two dollars and fifty cents worth of perfectly fine, perfectly farty, perfectly nasty little chicken legs, double wrapped in plastic and held as far away from my body as possible by hands covered in oven mitts while I held my breath and plugged my nose and prayed for salvation. I dumped those suckers straight into the garbage bin outside with a Good Riddance and a Praise Jesus! And then when I came back inside it was like the aura in my little kitchen had miraculously changed, the evil spirits had been purged, light and life and little butterflies reigned again and I knew that things were going to be okay. I took charge today, I did! And you can too!

And that is the story that will change your life. I mean, I'm pretty sure anyway.

How do you like to eat your chicken?

Maybe some day I will give it

(and the stupid spicy tuna)

another go?