LIFE QUESTIONS ANSWERED BY FLATTENED CHICKEN

 

 

To flatten a chicken use a pair of meat scissors and cut along one side of the backbone from the neck to the parson’s nose. Open up the bloody carcass and do the same on the other side.

 

Use scissors instead of a knife to avoid the ‘blade slipped on a rib bone and cut my finger and I got chicken blood in my blood’ terror.

 

Rub it with olive oil, salt and pepper, then lay it open side down on the bed of thin sliced lemon and rosemary sprigs you spread on the baking rack you set on a foil covered baking tray. Four hundred degrees for fifty minutes and/or one hundred sixty degrees on a meat thermometer stuck into a couple of meaty parts, let it rest, and go.

 

All life questions aren’t solved by removing a backbone and getting a tan, but some problems start there. For instance…

 

Will You Be Bitter

 

Imagine yourself at the top of your game after going through the hardest physical and mental tests on earth to get there. You tested out while most others dropped out.

 

Then you hear about a couple of dropouts who got promoted to leadership and took the tests again. Their failure of backbone the first time is the real test. They didn’t grow a new one in the passing years.

 

If you hear extreme tough talk from a soft bag propped up by a temporary backbone, keep an eye on their past to predict future behavior. No one has had a successful backbone transplant so far. It’s a matter time before a soft bag goes flat. That’s no way to answer life questions.

 

Will You Be Happy

 

Once we get into a rut we stay there if the pay is good, or if we just give up on any dreams left since the last we quit dreaming.

 

Will you achieve your goals? Reach your potential? Or drag through the trenches in shadows until you get a backbone transplant?

 

The chicken is the most versatile food source on earth other than a plant based diet guaranteed to improve your health and prolong the peak years of life. Asian chicken, African chicken, Euro chicken, Kentucky chicken, this is one well traveled bird with more recipes than Mykelti Williamson‘s Bubba Blue in Forrest Gump if you sub chicken for shrimp:

 

You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There’s uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich.

 

When life turns boring and repetitious like the never to be missed roasted chicken in plastic you put in the cart every trip to the store, do one thing different each day. And keep track. Eventually you’ll do so many new things you’ll look forward to learning even more.

 

Start with flattened chicken as an answer to life questions.

 

Will You Be Safe

 

If you find yourself humming Pink Floyd’s THE WALL when you think about safety, make sure you get the words straight. Here’s a cue:

 

Mother, do you think they’ll drop the bomb?
Mother, do you think they’ll like this song?
Mother, do you think they’ll try to break my balls?
Ooh, aah, mother, should I build the wall?

Mother, should I run for president?
Mother, should I trust the government?
Mother, will they put me in the firing line?
Ooh, aah, is it just a waste of time?

Hush now, baby, baby, don’t you cry
Mama’s gonna make all of your nightmares come true
Mama’s gonna put all of her fears into you
Mama’s gonna keep you right here under her wing
She won’t let you fly but she might let you sing
Mama’s gonna keep baby cozy and warm

Ooh, babe, ooh, babe, ooh, babe
Of course mama’s gonna help build the wall

 

To every momma’s boy and daddy’s girl on earth, and that’s all of us in case you’re wondering, we look to good decisions from our leaders to guide our safety in the bigger picture. The smaller picture is more up to the individual, unless a large collection of unruly individuals choose their ideal momma’s boy to lead.

 

Will you be safe in the hands of a soft, tanned, sack propped up by a temporary backbone?

 

While you ponder, what about the flattened chicken and life questions? How do we start to find answers?

 

It begins with this: