The Chicken We Eat

It’s Tuesday again, which is wild because it was just Tuesday the other day.
Tuesdays entail eating dinner at an impossible speed so my husband and I can race both kids off to their overpriced dance classes where they learn a routine they then perform for one whole minute to an auditorium of hostages at the end-of-year dance show.

A ticket to the show costs more than a Broadway musical starring Hugh Jackman and their costumes dotted with hand-sewn sequins are equivalent to a mortgage payment, but the real value is in the glorious two hours my husband and I get alone every week while they are in their lessons.

Some couples love cooking together. Some couples have already made roast chicken and mashed potatoes in the time it took their husband to chop a cucumber.

Guess which category we fall in?

While he’s engrossed in a text, I finish chopping the cucumber he’s been hacking away at for the last infinity minutes and call the kids for dinner.

The children come barreling down the stairs because they know it is Tuesday and we are in a hurry.

JK, they say “coming!” then “one minute” then “FIIIIIIIINE” then “OH MY GOD MOM!”

Eventually, we sit down to eat.

JK, the adults sit, the kids perch like feral raccoons preparing to pounce on a trash pile.

My daughter is holding a fork in one hand and a cube of chicken in the other. The only bridge between her body and her chair is a single toe. She appears more sticky than her baseline level because of a sweaty field trip her class took to the city farm.

Mommy,” she asks, looking up at me with her stupid adorable little face that was built to ensure her survival.

I don’t want to answer, because if I answer we are at risk of her going off on a 30-minute monologue involving props and costumes and but can I tell you somethings that we simply do not have the time to entertain.

But if I don’t answer, the outcome remains the same, so I say “Eat your dinner” and she says:

“I know there’s the chicken we saw at the farm, but what is the chicken we eat?”

My son cackles. My husband flashes me a look of boyish amusement.

I am wholly unprepared to have this conversation. I need to tread carefully because what I don’t need is a fucking herbivore for a child.

She once saved a clove of garlic from meeting its minced destiny. She tied a leash around it and made it her pet garlic whom she called Gary.

Another time, she held a funeral for a pancaked earthworm and invited our friends and family over to pay their respects.

My daughter cannot pass a single untethered pet without declaring it lost and attempting to implement the legally-binding rule of finders keepers.

I don’t recall ever having to have this conversation with my son. I feel like he made the connection early and independently and wasn’t particularly fazed by it. He’s always tolerated animals but never expressed any qualms about eating them.

A veil of grief washes over me.

Not for the loss of innocence my words will inevitably cause my daughter.

Not for the animal we are happily bathing in BBQ sauce.

But for the two hours of me time I would potentially lose from the fallout of truthfully answering this question.

I inhale deeply and squish my face into an expression of deep concern for my daughter while simultaneously side-eyeing the clock on the wall.

“Honey,” I start.

“Here we go,” says my son convulsing with giggles.

“Liiiiiisa don’t eaaaaat meeee,” unhelpfully adds my husband, a reference to a Simpsons episode where Lisa Simpson becomes a vegetarian.

I swallow my laughter and it goes down wrong.

I cough.

I clear my throat.

I can’t procrastinate any longer because it is so damn late and I need these kids to go to dance class.

“Oh for fucks sake,” I mutter under my breath.

“THE CHICKEN AT THE FARM IS THE SAME AS THE CHICKEN WE EAT,”

I blurt and it comes out slightly angry-sounding.

She looks at me.

She looks at my husband to fact-check. He returns her gaze with a slight nod.

Birds take off in urgent flight. Dogs everywhere hide under furniture and whimper. Our shed door squeaks as it sways with the wind. The express bus stops, ejects four people, and speeds off again.

“They’re… the same?” she asks, unblinking.

“They are,” I confirm.

“Woaaaah,” she says, popping the manhandled piece into her mouth.

OK, that was unexpected.

“But can I ask you something?” she asks, already asking me something.

“Of course,” I respond, unsure where this journey will take us next.

“Can I have some ice cream after dance?”

You can have all the ice cream in the world.

“Sure,” I say, if you can hurry up so we get there on time.

She shovels the chicken from the farm/chicken we eat into her mouth.

“Well that was interesting,” says my son, always the comic relief. Then, “Hey, do you guys know about castoreum? It’s an ingredient in vanilla ice cream.”

We do not.

“It’s juice from a beaver’s anus!” he is so excited to tell us this that his voice cracks and we all laugh.

Everyone chooses chocolate ice cream because we draw a hard line at eating juice from a beaver’s anus.