I made some chicken and rice soup yesterday that took hours. Shredding raw chicken is hard. Then I realized that I had to cook the damn things first. By that point one slimy chicken leg (slimy can’t be good, right?) had popped up like a fucking dove out of a magician’s hat and arced in slow motion, spinning about eye-level, before plunging toward kitchen floor.

Instinctively, as though I was playing some sort of raw poultry jacky sack, I stalled the damn thing in the basket of my clenched-together knees, proud of my cat-like reflexes.

Only a few moments later did I realize that raw chicken juice was now soaking into the cotton of my jeans. I let the drumstick drop.

These jeans are of the regrettable expense sort. The Japanese selvedge, heritage loom, blah, blah, blah kind. They are of the never, not ever, don’t even think about washing quality.

So now I’m left wondering exactly how long salmonella can live in tightly woven, deeply indigo dyed cotton.