An incident with the chicken

Hmm, "an incident with the chicken" sounds like a book title. I'll have to keep it in mind when I write my life's work. On to the blog!

Last weekend I threw Jonathan a birthday party. Knowing that all invitees were bonified meat eaters, I bought 20 lbs of animal flesh (for grilling, not ritualistic sacrifice).

Allow me to digress. A few years ago, a friend of mine gradually became a vegetarian. Dinner by dinner, she began not eating beef, shrimp, pork, and then finally chicken. I didn't find out about the chicken until after I cooked a meal that starred the poultry beast. I guess I should have asked before inviting her for dinner, but dropping certain foods from ones diet isn't a point of discussion that comes up regularly when you live two hours away from each other.

So I had to ask why, had she decided to become a bonified vegetarian because of her love of animals?

Her response, "I was cutting chicken the other day, and I had an incident with the chicken."

"An incident...did it start walking again? Were there extra parts? wtf is an incident?" I asked.

She gave me one of those looks that screamed "back off". "Let's just leave it at it being an incident with the chicken."

So I left it.

Fast forward to last Friday, me in my kitchen with 20 lbs of meat before me. After cutting about 5 lbs of meat, I started feeling lightheaded. 5 lbs of meat later, my stomach began churning. All I could think about was the fleshy texture under my fingers, and the smell of raw meat filling my nostils. 5 lbs of chicken later, I had to shoo my cat away because I felt like I was going to hurl at any moment. The final 5 lbs of chicken, I knew it had happened -- I had just experienced an incident with the chicken.

I didn't eat much at the party, and I've been eating more veggies to supplement my lack of meat. I haven't sworn meat off completely, but I am certainly not forgetting my incident with the chicken anytime soon.

P.S. My blogger spell check doesn't know the word blog. How odd.