Ladies and gentlemen, if you’re looking for a time killer to while away the minutes, this is the post for you.

If you’re looking for the opportunity to make note that the time it takes to read this post is forever gone and will never be returned, then look no further. 

You’re in the right place.

For the last several years, I’ve reserved a few hours on a Saturday afternoon every six weeks or so to do meal prep.  In essence, I’ve subjected just about every meaty part a chicken has to offer to charcoal fueled heat sufficient enough to render the product safe enough to pass through my alimentary canal without either taking the express lane to the end, or reversing course.

Certainly other varmints and vegetables have landed on the rack for preparation, but for the most part, tenders, wings, and legs have the most prevalent occupants on my grill.

Once the grillin’ is done, the fruits of the flame are then transitioned into phase II of the meal prep.  Various flavored pizzas, quesadillas, and other wraps are made, thrown into a labeled and dated baggy, and deposited into the freezer for later use.

Over the next six weeks, a baggy is retrieved from the freezer and thawed out.  After the lunch time walk with the TharpSter TreadMill and Mag-B the SLab, I throw the contents of that baggy into the air-fryer like cooking device that Wifey received for her birthday this last year from her sister.

It should be stated here and now, that device is my favorite birthday gift my Wife has ever received.

If I ever darken the doors at the office again, the favorite lunchtime pastime I’ve developed during the lockdown is going to be irretrievably broken unless I can engineer a way of making those dogs and that air fryer available in the breakroom.

Okay, let’s move to the second act.

Yesterday, I did some grillin’.

In this case, exactly 9 1/2 Botticellian chickens made their way from the grocery story freezer case to the backyard vessel which would subject them to varying degrees of heat before becoming one with the baggy.

Three preparations were used. 

On the top shelf, 7 legs were treated to a concoction I found over twenty years ago in preparation for a camping trip.

On the main rack on the left side, 3 chickens lent their mobility to the glory of buffalo sauce.

Over on the right side, the remaining legs were treated with barbeque sauce.

When all would be said and done, this would make 9 1/2 meals.

I’m still trying to figure out what the chicken factory was thinking for putting an odd number of drumsticks in a bag for my consumption, but I’m not going to burn too many calories over an answer I already know.

Once the grillin’ was done and there was no evidence of chicken tar-tar, I removed the legs from the grill and deposited them into three separate containers and moved them to the kitchen counter so that they could cool down. 

I then returned to the grill, scrubbed the racks with a wire brush, and closed the lid and the smoke stack to keep any potential rain from getting in there.  I then high fived the grill for a job well done and returned inside.

While the drumsticks cooled, I prepared a non-drumstick lunch (in the air fryer) and proceeded with some of my daily reading.

Shortly after sitting down to eat my lunch, Wifey returned home from running a few errands.  “Oh you got your drumsticks done.  What flavor do you have here?”

Before responding, I recalibrated my plans to reflect 8 1/2 meals to prepare for when it came time to freeze them.  I told her what flavors were there.

“Is the barbeque spicy?”  she asked.

“I mixed two barbeque sauces,, one of which is spicy.  There may be a little bit of a burn on the back side.”

“May I have a few of the barbeque ones?”

“Sure.”

Wifey then proceeded to sniff them to determine which ones were the barbeque.  Spicy food doesn’t really set well with her, so she wanted to make sure she made the correct choice.  She then put a few on a piece of our finest paper flatware and began to eat her lunch.  I was just finishing my lunch and went into the kitchen to begin the last phase of my meal prep.

“Would you mind bringing me a bottle of barbeque sauce?”  She asked.  “I like a lot of sauce on mine.”

“Sure.”  I took her the sauce.

“I can taste the spiciness on the back end.”  She announced.  That just told me I had done it right.

A few moments later, I’m digging out the baggies and have gotten them labeled.

Mag-B the SLab sits dutifully at my left drooling up a puddle significant enough to give Pavlov a case of the vapors.

The buffalo drums were first.  I had three bags ready to go.

The problem was that there were only four legs in there now when previously there had been six.

I looked up at Wifey, who was just finishing off her second and final stick.  “Hmmm.”  I uttered.

She looked up at me.  “What?”

I looked down at the two bowls I had in front of me.  One bowl had more barbeque sticks than I expected, and the other one had fewer in the buffalo varietal. 

“Well…..” I slow rolled a response.  “It would seem that you just treated the buffalo drumsticks with barbeque sauce.  That probably explains why they were spicier than you expected.”

In the end, she took it all in stride.  I think we both came away from the incident with further evidence that her sense of smell may not be up to par.  I’m guessing she made a mental note or two as she ate what she thought was barbeque that my grilling abilities and the wonders I can do with a chicken do not live up to all of the hype and hooplah I normally tout.

At the same time, I made a mental note to write a time wasting story about the event.

Here’s hoping it lives up to its full potential.