The Meat Shall Inherit the Fridge

The purchase of groceries is considered the first act in the long drama of How Will We Get Rid of the Food. My suggestion -- let's eat it! -- inspires heavy sighs and rolling of eyes. This is particularly the case when it comes to leftovers, which tend to be, to put it mildly, disrespected. They're icky. It's like: Ew.

At some point, the chicken took complete control of our lives. We were not really "eating" anymore, much less "dining" or "enjoying a repast." We were just processing food. We were heaving our stomachs into the path of the chicken as it considered its options. Chicken pizza. Chicken Jell-O. Chicken a la mode.

My wife found ways to distribute the chicken around town. She became the Chicken Lady. We also threw another little party and invited some friends who had missed the previous one. But they all knew the back story, and their attitude was, "Great! We'll eat old food from a party to which we weren't even invited!" No one touched the chicken sandwiches except for my wife and me.

We dropped off a tub of chicken with my friend Mike, who was gracious enough to accept our food debris. He, in turn, quickly got on the horn and made a bunch of calls: "We've got all this leftover chicken! Drop by and eat some!" What Mike didn't realize is that:

1) In his haste he did not make clear, in his invitation, whether he, Mike, would actually be in attendance at the leftover-chicken-eating event.

2) His invitation did not communicate to the invited parties that they possessed any social attribute other than their ability to consume the old food. And thus:

3) The invited parties felt as though they were being treated, literally, like dogs.

Gradually, piece by piece, we put some serious dents in the meat-block. One day we realized that we had reached a turning point, as it were: The chicken, dried out, unpalatable, had lost its plausible edibility. Oh, happy day! Yes, it would still be wasteful and shameful to throw it away (I hear my Mom, circa 1967: "People are starving in India!"), but it wasn't entirely our fault. We'd tried to eat it, but it had gone bad, or was thinking of going bad imminently. It had malign intentions. Also it now had the moisture content of rubber bands. The chicken strips were suddenly useful only as packing material or Christmas ornaments.

So we gave it the heave-ho. Bagged it up, hurled it into the SuperCan. Free at last!

Except that when you have a very close relationship to a specific batch of leftovers, you never really say goodbye. They infiltrate your dreams, mocking you, chiding you, taunting you.

They always say the same thing: Eat me.

achenbachj@washpost.com

Joel Achenbach is a Washington Post staff writer and blogs at washingtonpost.com/achenblog.