ChickenOccoli is Alive!

A few days ago my wife Kay had to be gone for the evening -- she was going to help the kids mark rummage sale items. “You’re on your own for supper,” she shouted as she headed out the door for the front lines of the Great Rummage Sale Battle. Other than grilling, the only thing I can cook is French Toast. But I had some things I needed to get done on this Friday night so I just threw a couple of frozen chicken and broccoli things in the toaster oven and cranked it up to 30 minutes. I got involved in doing some stuff and forgot about supper. When I realized my food was now getting cold I went up to the kitchen to get them. I figured I’d just pop them into the microwave and reheat the recooked precooked chicken&broccolithingys. I grabbed the STEEL tray lined with TINFOIL that they were on and, without thinking, opened up the microwave oven (which is directly above the toaster oven) and threw them in. I punched in one minute on the timer, turned on the microwave, and started thinking about other stuff. With my mind on another planet I could hear the microwave going bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz shzhzhhhzhzhzhhhhhhhhhhhs zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr zhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzh. Or maybe it was zhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzh bbbbbbbbbbbbb gzgzgzgzgzgzgzgzgzgz rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr whpwhpwhpwhpwhp. I can’t quite remember. I looked up, and there, directly in front of my eyes, was an elongated spark or blue flame going across the entire front of the chicken patty tray. WOW! It looked like a tiny aurora borealis right there in my kitchen! A brilliant northern Minnesota Northern Lights display in my microwave! I was so wishing my brothers were there to see it. And I wanted so much just to keep the microwave going. Just to see, in the name of science and the interaction of broccoli electrons with chicken electrons and all that’s good about America, what would happen. But my wife would be back from the front lines of the Great Rummage Sale Battle preparations and I didn’t want the microwave to be just a puddle of plastic and metal. So I panicked and hit the cancel button. I very, very s l o w l y opened the door. I halfway expected the chicken&broccoli things to get up and walk. Sort of a microwave version of Young Chicken Frankenstein. CHICKENOCCOLI IS ALIVE!!! Nope…they were still dead…and they smelled like ozone…but tasted like chicken. Dan Vander Ark All Rights Reserved