Who's In Charge Of Making The Choices Around Here, Anyway?

Fie on the gas station chicken store for trying to force Mrs. Hillbilly Mom into wise choices!

It's no secret that Mrs. HM has been a bit under the weather. With this being Day 7 of her infirmity, she is feeling almost normal again, despite a constant tickle in the back of her throat leading to an unproductive (much like Mrs. HM herself) cough, and the movage of green mucus from her lungs to her nasal cavities. Okay. That last part is a bit of a fib, because Mrs. HM is still coughing up green junk. But it HAS migrated to her nose.

Lucky for Mrs. HM, she still has her sense of taste. And today marked the return of gas station chicken! They call a moratorium on it for Mondays and Tuesdays, you know. With her relapsed addiction to that greasy goodness, Mrs. HM has been jonesin' for some fried fowl. Off she went at 10:30 this a.m. to procure her fix.

I should have known to hop out of T-Hoe the minute I pullled into my favorite parking space. But no. I was fiddling with my scratch-off tickets that I wanted to cash in. Which let a big red truck park in the space beside me, TOO CLOSE, even though I was over against the side concrete bumper. That dude parked with his tires RIGHT ON the line. So I couldn't open up T-Hoe's door all the way, and had to bend my knee tighter than it prefers.

Anyhoo...I went around to the soda fountain and ran my 44 oz Diet Coke, keeping an eye on that dude, who was easy to spot, what with wearing a neon green work vest of the type favored by outdoor near-traffic laborers. That dude had the nerve to order a snack box of chicken. Taking the VERY LAST thigh from the chicken warmer. One breast remained. And a couple of tiny wings. The dude was blathering about how he was going back to his office and having a feast, since his boss was off today, and wouldn't know what was going on at work.

I stepped up next, and said, "Am I too late to get a breast and a thigh?" Let the record show that it was 10:59 a.m.

"Oh. I have a batch cooking. It will take six minutes."

"All right. I'll wait." When you've looked forward to your gas station chicken for a week, you figure you can allow six minutes out of your totally nothing-going-on day to wait and get what you came for.

A trio of older women came through the door while I was cashing in my tickets to trade for an equal amount of new ones. (Let the record further show that I cashed in $12 worth, and won $50.) The ladies wanted some chicken! They were sorely disappointed to find the cupboard bare. One of them, not with the other two, spied the last breast. "Can I have that one? It looks so good!" Let the record continue to show that it DID look good. She left a happy customer.

The other two ladies went for the 8-piece box. My order came out first, and the boxer/fryer told me, "You might want to open the top of the box so it doesn't get soggy." Duly noted. But Mrs. HM is not a gas station chicken novice, and does that all the time.

Imagine my consternation when I got home, and saw that not only was my thigh a bit on the underdeveloped side, but that my fairly large breast had very little coating on it. In fact, it had a bald spot! How dare that boxer/fryer cut back on my crispiness! That's the whole point of gas station chicken! If I didn't want fried crispiness, I could have baked myself a boneless skinless breast!

Anyhoo...my chicken was delicious, even though not quite of the level of decadence I desired.