Mrs. Hillbilly Mom Has Been Short-Chickened!

Wednesday morning, I stepped on the scale and saw that another pound was gone, putting me just one away from the century mark.

I'm sure the chicken lady at the gas station chicken store was only looking out for my waistline yesterday. Not being deliberately mean-spirited, knowing that I had lost another pound in addition to those two holiday pounds, and wanting to jealously shortchange me on my fowl order.

In fact, when I stepped up to the counter and ordered a breast and a thigh rather than an 8-piece box (too many other meals in the queue in FRIG II for gas station chicken leftovers), she said she'd be right back. There were breasts and thighs and legs and wings in the warming trays. I knew she had chicken. I figured she was getting me fresh pieces. Because I'm a regular, you know. She was surely going to get me fresh chicken just out of the fryer.

That chicken smelled delicious, too! She put my two pieces in the cardboard box they use for the 8-piece. Some of the fryers put then in individual foil packets, which I don't like much, because then the chicken sweats, and it's hard to restore the crispiness when I get it home. And speaking of when i got home...I found THIS:

I put frowny Honest Abe there for scale. Abe would be crying a single Indian tear for me, I'm pretty sure. Not because I'm a victim of pollution, but because I'm a victim of diminution! A chicken thigh should never fit on half a five-dollar bill! Not unless it's just gotten out of the swimming pool during a weekend in The Hamptons. Yes, my gas station chicken had experienced shrinkage.

I saw that, as Rooster Cogburn told Mattie Ross of near Dardanelle in Yell County when inspecting the Colt Dragoon she carried around in a flour sack...my chicken, like Mattie Ross herself, weren't no bigger'n a corn nubbin'." And the breast was nearly the size of the thigh, with a HOLE in it, and one side nothing but batter fried over those flat ribby bones with no meat on them. The picture does not do justice in showing the injustice of my short-chickening.

So truncated was my meal that I only needed HALF a slice of Nutty Oat Bread, and HALF a ramekin of slaw as my side dishes. I swear! I've seen more meat on mouse carcasses that Jack leaves on the front porch!

And no, I had no qualms about placing paper money on the plate (my fine china) beside my meal. What's a little cocaine and feces and staphylococcus when you live with Farmer H and are treated to his barnyard mud on your kitchen floor, and his toileting surprises on your commode?

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[Lest you think that Mrs. HM is obsessed with food (okay, that may be true, what with her back on limited daily calories again), please remember that she IS retired now, with no boy young 'uns at home to fill her blogworthy file, and only so much complaining she can do about Farmer H, The Devil, and people who can't drive or park correctly. You're lucky you're not hearing about what Puppy Jack has for his snack every night.]