Rubber Chicken

Last week for our Relief Society's enrichment night we had a brown bag dinner. We had sack lunches... but the central activity for the night was that everyone brought a brown lunch sack with something in it that had special meaning to them and share its story with the rest of the group.

I was really excited to find that our rubber chicken fit in the sack.... because it's really a big part of our marriage. I thought you might like to know the story, too.

When I was on my mission, Howie got his hands on this pretty nasty looking rubber chicken. He stuffed it full of my favorite Italian chocolates (see picture). To get the chocolates back out, I had to perform surgery on the poor little chicken.

As thanks for the gift, I made him a tape (the holy grail of long distance communication). I put the tape inside the chicken, along with all the candy wrappers and a couple of dozen feathers - stitched it back up, and mailed it back to him.

The chicken made another more significant experience, though, after I got home from my mission. 4 weeks to the day after I got back, Howie cooked me dinner at his house. He had red roses and candlelight. After dinner, through a less than casual show of deciding to look up a scripture, he presented me with a set of scriptures. One one cover he'd had my full name, with his last name, engraved. On the other, he'd engraved "Will you marry me?"

Of course I got all excited and said yes. Then he asked if I wanted a ring. He brought me a couple of fake rings first. Then, he went into the kitchen and returned with our chicken on a platter... the ring on its beak.

So - our rubber chicken... dirty and nasty as it is... is pretty important to us. I've had to work a bit to fit it into our decorating.... since there's no way I'd put it away into storage somewhere. And everytime I look at it, it makes me smile.