The Cult of the Breakfast Chicken

Every now and then something that seems small and slightly entertaining takes on a life of its own… and such is the myth of the Breakfast Chicken.

I once blogged about the best job I’ve ever had; this is about the 2nd best job I’ve ever had – interestingly enough it was working in a grocery store.

As a bulk stocker working 4 hours a morning it was my job to make sure the bins of bulk food items were filled to the brim; each day I waited for customers to come along and complain that a) prices were too high, b) stock was inadequate: “why don’t you carry <Insert name of obscure bulk food item such as powdered Dodo tusk> c) general complaint regarding weather.

The work wasn’t glorious but at the time I was pulling a number of part time jobs and this was my corner of the world and I could bring some order to it. What made the difference, as is often teh case, was the people.

Occasionally I got a simultaneous shift with my best peep Chris – that was of course always entertaining. The manager of the produce department, Rudy, was a great guy with a wickedly sarcastic sense of humour; then there was Roy – the word dotard comes to mind. He’d spend 5 hours packing up to trays of potatoes and marking them as reduced and then talk about how much he’d saved the company (not factoring in to his calculations the hourly wages he’d just burned).

The other main source of entertainment was Wayne; he had my kind of sense of humour and we were for the most part quite lucky that most of our hours were done before customers were allowed in the store. It was nothing for him to say “Come Smeagol, get the sacks of taters!” and I doing my best Gollum impression (which is pretty damn good) would say “Taters, What’s taters you stupid fat hobbit!”

Good times that.

Then there was the time he kept complaining that he had a really bad headache and I kept telling him it was a brain tumour. His response was: “What would you do if I died right now of a brain tumour?” I said, honestly: “Well most of me would be horrified, but at least 10% of me would be amazed at my awesome powers of medical diagnosis!”

But the thing that made other people look at us and shake their heads on a regular basis was the Breakfast Chicken. To some the Breakfast chicken might look like your average pre-packaged rotisserie chicken; but to us it became something more: it was the Breakfast Chicken. At first it was called such because it was chicken that we had for Breakfast. but it soon took on a life of its own; no longer did the assistant manager say: “Hey Smeagol! Get the Taters!”

No, instead it was: “Hey Bill, go grab us a Breakfast Chicken, I’ll grab the Montreal Steak Spice and the buns!

This was in a magical time before the Bird Flu came to BC and rotisserie chickens were more frequent than hippy tree hugging PETA lovers so I could afford a Breakfast Chicken on my meagre wages. It came to be a daily habit; when we didn’t polish off the Breakfast chicken on our break we would put the carcass in the fridge and finish it off the next day.

Chris, who’s father ran the store, saw us on many occasions and even partook – there was often a guest eater but Wayne and I were the hosts of the Breakfast Chicken Morning Show – and Chris told his father the tale and his father began to call it the Breakfast Chicken. Soon my wife began to refer to it as the Breakfast Chicken, and others began to emulate her (for she is a person worth emulating).

Even to this day when I have only the occasional breakfast chicken (and at night even) the name stands; for the Breakfast Chicken became something more than just a delicious chicken sandwich with Montreal Steak Spice: it was a fight against boundaries.

“Look” we said through our actions,  “This is a meal you would have in the evening, yet we, we happy few, have it at Breakfast. We do not believe in your strictures, your rules; though we work in this grocery store and follow the rules you have laid out for us we will not succumb to the mandates of society in every aspect of our lives! This, which you would call a DINNER chicken has become the Chicken of The Morning, The Breakfast Chicken!”

I ask you, Solitary Reader, when you see that chicken spinning in your Extra Foods, your Save On, Your Super Store – when you see it, salute it: for this is the Chicken of No Boundaries.

This is the Breakfast Chicken.