The Last Piece of Chicken

I love chicken and growing up we ate a lot of it. Chicken was the meat of choice. You can prepare it in a million different ways and most importantly, it's cheap, or at least it was 20 years ago. Of the million ways that exist my family was most familiar with the fried variety. Crispy, oven cooked chicken goodness.

As a kid my mom would make one pack of chicken which meant that there was only enough for everyone to eat one piece. But, that left one extra piece. Every time, without exception, I would ask my dad if he wanted the last piece and he would say, "no, I don't need another piece, you can eat it." As a kid it was a bit baffling. The chicken was delicious and if I was hungry enough to eat a second piece than certainly my dad was too. But every time he let me or my brother eat that last piece. "I'll just eat something out of the fridge." he would say. He never said, "I'm older so I get it." or "I'm bigger so I get it." or "Because I'm your dad.""You can have it," every time.

Over the years that attitude has stuck with me. If one of the kids wants the extra taco, or half of my fries, they can have. I don't even think twice about it. Why, because that's what my dad did. I guess I now understand why he always let me have the last piece of chicken. Who gets your last piece?