6. College, part 2

I called my mother and got a chicken recipe. It worked, to my surprise. Feeling virtuous, I added a lot of salt and ate it alone in my room on a paper plate. I then carefully wrapped the leftover 3/4 of a chicken in aluminum foil and planned which of the remaing seven days would be fleischig.

There remained one problem: cold, I needed cold for the chicken to remain viable until we finished crossing the desert. I didn't have a refrigerator, and my friends who did had already filled them with beer. Well, it was March, and still pretty chilly. I noted the handle conveniently situated on the on the outside of my fourth floor window, just the right size from which to safely dangle a bag filled with fowl. I could bring her indoors once a day to remove a leg or wing, and then re-hang the bag from the handle. She'd be first chicken in the world to nest on a dorm room ledge.

It was a brilliant solution, as long as March remained seasonable. The sun, unfortunately, came out on the fifth day of Passover. By dinnertime, the chicken no longer looked quite as appealing, and I opted for a salad instead. On the sixth day, I forgot about her. I was afraid to open the window on the seventh day, wondering how a chicken baking in direct sunlight for almost a week might smell. By the eighth day, like the Israelites in Beshallach who thought it really would be better to stay slaves than face the unknown, I was in a state of complete denial.