Confessional

I have a confession to make. A secret I've told no one else. An addiction..It's a trivial thing, really, but it's something I've got to get off my chest. Brace yourself Gentle Readers, find a chair, make yourself comfortable, brew some coffee, this could be long.

Rotisserie chicken. I'm mad about it. Absolutely mad. It's 4 A.M. I'm finishing up at the lab. I'm alone. I'm hungry. I'm single. This is normal, you ask? I pull into the local Farm Fresh grocery store at 530 A.M. Saunter casually to the entrance, and bump my head into the magical glass doors I expect to open. Closed. I weep silently. They don't open till 600 A.M. There's people inside. I can see them. People in white lab coats and gloves, just like me. Except these people are cooking rotisserie chickens, not petrochemicals. I press my nose to the glass like a small lost puppy looking for table scraps. I change my countenance to resemble Oliver Twist. Nothing. The women in white stare at me...and mock. A little old grandma picks up a large fork and stabs a roasting chicken. Holds it aloft and waves. No mercy. A dark shadow crosses my path. Security guard.

"You not loitering here, are you son?"

"No Sir, I'm waiting," I reply. "I just want a chicken, rotisserie chicken that is."

He looks confused, squints his eyes, and says "It's 530 in the morning, No one wants rotisserie chicken this time of the day. Be gone!"

I take the man's advice, since he appears wise...and carries a gun. SuperWalmart. 545 A.M. Open 24 hours. I love this country. I walk through the magic doors. This time they open and my nostrils immediately pick up the scent of hot, spicy, dead foul. I perk up my nose like a bloodhound and walk past an old man born during WWI, that asks me if I want a cart. I make no response. He tells me I'm rude. I tell him I'm just a New Yorker. He understands...calm. I pick up the scent of rotisserie chicken again. I'm in a trance. The siren call of the spice beckons. I heed. I heed to aisle 3, past the endless boxes of cereal, past the 13 rows of ketchup, past the display of cantaloupes from Costa Rica. I pause.

"Hmm, not yet. Later."

I continue on to the deli section and stop. When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a row of rotisserie chickens, that fills my heart with cheer. My hands tremble, I salivate like Pavlov's dog. I fight giggling out loud lest the stock boys think I've escaped from the institute again. Sale. Transaction. Debit Card. 605 A.M. Back at the apartment. Shutters are closed, door is locked. The deed is done. The hot spicy aroma stokes my olfactory furnaces to the breaking point. With a fork in my right, and BBQ sauce in my left, I indulge for the next thirty minutes. I turn into a human tyrannosaur, a carnivorous sapien, and then...calm.