Smells Like Chicken

It was my turn to cook and my companion and I were completely booked. This day, I was going to need all of the two hour siesta to prepare the chicken casserole, bake it in the oven, make the side dishes, eat and then clean up before we were back out to work. I made it as easy as possible by getting up early and cooking the whole chicken so that I could easily remove the meat from the bones. That would save a half hour or more of valuable time.

I placed the chicken in a pot and brought the water to a low boil because I didn't want to overcook the bird. Once the chicken was finished I would leave it in the refrigerator so that I could manually shred the cooked meat without getting burned. As I waited for the chicken to finish cooking, I put on my white shirt and tie, brushed my teeth and checked on the chicken that was close to being done to my liking.

We had almost twenty minutes before we had to make the seven minute walk to the metro station to reach our first appointment, so I felt no rush when my companion said he needed a few more minutes before he was ready. This also gave the chicken time to boil a little longer and I thought it would help ensure that no one got sick from my cooking. About ten minutes later we both realized that it was time to go. We offered a quick companionship prayer and dashed out the door, half jogging to the station to make sure we made the connection. And we did.

Relieved we pulled out our planners and finalized our game plan for the rest of the day's activities. Our first appointment was a meeting with all the other missionaries in our district. When we arrived we exchanged pleasantries before we discussed the items on the agenda. Almost 20 minutes into the meeting I leapt from my chair and without asking permission started running from the meeting while yelling for my companion to follow. I didn't wait for a bus or a metro, I immediately hailed a taxi and asked the driver to please hurry.

I stood twenty yards from our building and I was relieved and humiliated at the same time. The building was still standing and there was no sign that the fire department had come to pay a visit. But the smell of burned chicken bones, wafts through the wind with a potency that exceeds most other odors. This was not a good thing. Choking back the urge to vomit, we made it up to our apartment and worked our way through smoke and stench to the kitchen. There we discovered a dry, empty but charred pan. I wrote a humble apology note to our neighbors and for the next two months we left two cans of deodorizing sprays at the entrance to the building for anyone to use.