Buying Chicken

Buying Chicken Breasts in America:

On any typical day in America, you might think to yourself, "Hmm, I'd like to fix chicken tonight." In response to your need, you hop in the car and drive to Publix (for you Alabamian friends) or Kroger (you other people). You spend 5, 15, 30, 90 minutes circling the parking lot looking for a good spot. You park. You walk back to the meat section and you stand over a vast array of chicken breasts neatly washed, deboned, skinned, and packed into a nice little styrofoam tray, plastic wrapped, and stuck with a price tag. You get the bagger boy to put it in a separate bag because, heaven forbid, you spread salmonella cooties and cause a pandemic in your 1500 sq foot kitchen.

Upon your arrival home, you park in the garage... begrudgingly walk from the basement to the first floor up the steps and begin the cooking process. You roll your sleeves up, get out your double bagged chicken, and make an awkward face as you get it into whatever cooking means you choose as quickly as possible. You then coat the house 7 or 8 times with Lysol, clorox, and comet cleanser.

You consume. You wash the kitchen again, just in case.

Buying Chicken Breasts Here:

Well, there is no Publix or Kroger, and Wal-Mart chicken is kinda of odd, so thankfully your friend has told you about and introduced you to the Chicken Lady at the wet market across the street.

wet market: a creepy "outdoor" market, indoors that sells fresh fruits, vegetables, and meat off of dead animal carcasses. The floor is always strangely wet, and if you were to slip and fall, it would be best to run towards the sweet release of death as quickly as possible.

Chicken Lady, who, by the way, wears dresses, high heels, and a grungy apron, is excellent because she will let you order chicken by bulk and JUST the chicken breast, which her chicken selling colleagues will, in fact, not do. She will even debone the chicken breasts for you. (Do be sure to take the bones with you though, she finds it odd if you don't!)

To order chicken breasts, Chicken Lady prefers that her foreign customers call her the night before. However, this white kid has horrible language, particularly over the phone where he cannot motion with his hands. So, he goes just before closing to Chicken Lady's stand and says something like the following:

White Kid: "Hello!"

Chicken Lady: "Hello Hello! Have you eaten? How are you?"

WK: "Good! Tomorrow, I want chicken, uh..." At this point, WK forgets the word for breasts, so he just points to his own (albeit nonexistent) breasts.

CL: At this point, Chicken Lady points to her girls and says, "Breasts?"

WK: Slightly embarrassed, but mostly amused at the sight of this encounter between foreigner and local... "Uh, yes, 10."

CL: "Ok! What time?"

WK: "10:00am" Only, he knows they won't be ready by then, so he'll show up closer to 11:00am

CL: "Good Good!"

WK: "Thank you! Good bye!"

CL "Don't mention it!! Goodbye!"

The next day you go visit Chicken Lady to pick up your chicken breasts. If you're lucky, she has already deboned them, and today she had! She weighs them, and then tells you the price. You pray "PLEASE LET ME HAVE EXACT CHANGE!!!" You don't. You hand her money. Her grimy chicken goo hands hand you back change. You put it in your pocket and mentally label it "chicken money." You take your bag of chicken and you go home.

By "go home" it means you walk back down and across the street, climb 6 flights of stairs to the 7th floor. You don't complain, because, after all, this is the 1 billionth time you've done this in the past year. Ok, you complain a little. It's like 20lbs of chicken.

Once you get home, it's time to clean it up. You cut the whole chicken breasts into 2 halves. You take the skin off. You gag a few times because it's gross. You wash your hands 2425425 times, and you take breaks often because it's gross. You bag it in a ziplock. You freeze it. You disinfect your kitchen. You think, "I can't wait to buy chicken in America!"