Covid Chicken

I’ve been sick the last few weeks. I’m not sure what I might have; but I’ve had fever, stuffiness, and coughing; so, I'm sure it's something viral. Because it's been lingering for so long, my wife encouraged me to go get checked out at the doctor. So, I made an appointment at the urgent care and went in this morning. I guess because my symptoms cross over several different possibilities (or maybe because they could charge the insurance more), they decided to do a flu test, strep test, and Covid test on me. The flu and step came back negative immediately, but I had to wait for the Covid results.

So since I had some time to kill, I decided to go home and have some lunch. As I ate my leftover chicken, I became worried because I couldn’t taste any of the food. It was just like a bland, pulpy mass in my mouth. If you're at all familiar with Covid, you realize that this is one of the symptoms, so I immediately started having a panic attack. How could I possibly have gotten Covid? I'm vaccinated, and I'm usually so careful. Did I get one of the mutant strands? Who have I come into contact with? It had to be some moron who didn't think Covid was a big deal, so there's no reason to take precautions or be safe. Who might I have given it to? Will my wife and son get it now because of me?

All these thoughts were flashing through my mind, as I sat eating this tasteless chicken. Then, I took a bite of the green beans, and I realized that they were very flavorful. I wondered. Is it possible to only lose taste in part of your tongue? I tried something else...tasty. I tried the chicken again, thinking maybe my taste was returning...bland. I was confused. 

Luckily, I didn't have to wait long for my results from the doctor, which confirmed my Covid test was also negative. I concluded that my wife hadn't used a lot of spices on this particular batch of chicken, so it would have been tasteless either way. In general, Greek cooking uses the "blander" spices, like oregano, basil, rosemary; rather than being salt and pepper heavy like American cooking. Since I was raised on salt and pepper, it's sometimes hard for me to taste the subtler, yet wonderful, flavors of other spices. But this batch of chicken tasted like it had been plucked and thrown straight into the oven. That it happened to coincide with my Covid "scare" was an unfortunate coincidence.

Just for Chest

While talking to my friend JR today, I realized that there is an untapped niche in the men's care market. You've probably heard of Just for Men, which is hair dye specifically designed for men. To be honest, I'm not sure what makes it specifically designed for men. Is men's hair different from a woman's? Do we really need separate hair dyes? Or is it a marketing gimmick? Anyway, I digress. Whatever the reason, we have the product line. So, back on point, we have the hair dye, and then the company released Just for Men: Beard (now since expanded into Just for Men: Mustache & Beard for all of those non-Amish users of the product), which is essentially the same exact product, but it also comes with a little comb so you can be more targeted with your dying. But why stop there?!

Why not Just for Men: Chest? Or Just for Men: Pubes? It would be the exact same formula as Just for Men, but marketed in different boxes, so men think they need to buy them all. It's genius! The marketing campaign could center around a man's dating life. Start with the head and face, and as your dating life progresses, you move down your body, dying as you go. I mean you can't have a woman realizing that you're fake all over when she sees silver in your chest hair or pubes, but your hair and beard were black! I'm telling you, untapped market. This is a sure-fire winner.

Which leads to the question of whether you should take it all the way down and do Just for Men: Legs. The answer is emphatically, "No!" Why, you might ask? Because the target demographic for this product, men 40+ years old, have already, for some completely inexplicable reason, started losing patches of their leg hair anyway. So, there's not enough there to dye or worry about. Besides, who is really focusing on legs when you get to that intimate moment?

Flying Tacos

When I lived in Missouri, I used to drive back to Texas occasionally to visit my family. It was about a 16-hour drive, and there were several routes I could take. My favorite was down through Arkansas, because it had the prettiest scenery. The shortest was through Oklahoma, but it was also the most boring, because there was nothing to see. Someone recommended that I try heading over to Kansas before heading down, so on one visit, I tried that route. Big mistake! It was just as boring as the Oklahoma route, but also longer. But that’s not the point of this story.

During my trip, I got hungry and pulled over at a Taco Bell to get some portable lunch. (This, of course, was back when I could actually digest and process Taco Bell without turning into Mt. Vesuvius for the next three days.) So, as I drove on down the road, being lulled to sleep by grasslands and cows for as far as the eye could see, I grabbed one of my soft tacos and started unwrapping it. I liked to wrap the paper around the bottom like a diaper to catch any particulates that might fall out of the taco. I got my taco ready and looked up to see no road in front of me.

I was on a slightly raised portion of the highway, and the green fields were spread out below me. My car was pointed at one of these fields about to launch off the highway and go flying over the barbed wire fence. A disinterested black cow was standing on the other side of the fence, munching on some grass, watching my car barreling straight at her. As she realized that I was not swerving to follow the highway as it curves off to the left, she became much more interested. Her mouth stopped mid chew, and the wet, half-chewed grass dropped from her gaping mouth.

Realizing that I was about to die in Kansas of all places, and take this poor cow with me, I threw my soft taco across the car, grabbed the wheel, and jerked it to the left. My car responded, and I skidded along the gravel shoulder, my tires just kissing the grass along the edge. By the grace of God, I managed to get back onto the highway. I pulled over a mile up the road and collected the remnants of my taco from the floorboard and tried unsuccessfully to put it back together again.

I never went that route again. Mostly because I couldn’t bear to face that cow again. Her dark, judgmental eyes still haunt my dreams. I wonder now if I might have cleared that fence (and the cow) and landed safely on the other side. I’m not sure what I would have done at that point if I had. I guess I could have driven across the field to the farmhouse and tried somehow to explain what happened. Logically, it would make sense for someone not to believe such a far fetched story. But the fact that I was miraculously in their field would have been irrefutable proof. Well that, and the taco. We can’t forget the taco.