Near our summer house was a fancy town. A really beautiful town, every town is beautiful in Maine, but this one had a blueberry hill at its back and the ocean at its front and it was clean and polite. Well, this beautiful town also had a great hardware store and one summer this great hardware store started selling rotisserie chicken. Among hammers, rope, nails, and screws, you could go stand by the hot, glass-encased rotisserie and the lady who owned the place would take a chicken out, kind of quarter it, and stick it in a bucket. A bag of nails and a bucket of chicken, it was fantastic.
Our mom liked this chicken quite a bit. It was so convenient that rotisserie chicken. She could drive the twenty minutes from the lake where we children (by now all pre-teens or teenagers) were left swimming and drive to the hardware store, get the chicken, and that would be dinner.
The better times would be when we would all go to the city supermarket about a forty minute drive up the coast and then stop at the hardware store on the way home. Our mom would get a bucket of chicken and start driving the winding roads towards our house, her arthritic hand would work the carton top off from under the folded foil rim of the bucket and would grab a piece of chicken. She would bite into it, talk, chew, gesticulate, swallow, and then toss the chicken bone out the window. She could clean a drumstick in about four bites.
“Best part?” she would smile, “It’s biodegradable.”
Our mom liked this chicken quite a bit. It was so convenient that rotisserie chicken. She could drive the twenty minutes from the lake where we children (by now all pre-teens or teenagers) were left swimming and drive to the hardware store, get the chicken, and that would be dinner.
The better times would be when we would all go to the city supermarket about a forty minute drive up the coast and then stop at the hardware store on the way home. Our mom would get a bucket of chicken and start driving the winding roads towards our house, her arthritic hand would work the carton top off from under the folded foil rim of the bucket and would grab a piece of chicken. She would bite into it, talk, chew, gesticulate, swallow, and then toss the chicken bone out the window. She could clean a drumstick in about four bites.
“Best part?” she would smile, “It’s biodegradable.”