“Paid by the Piece” by Marilyn Paolino

“Do you remember that one time our grandparents bought us Kentucky Fried Chicken?”   

“Yes, I ate drumsticks because they were small. I didn’t even like drumsticks,” confessed my brother Jay as we reminisced about our days getting takeout KFC.  

Those days were 50 years ago. 

“I should have followed your lead. My mistake. I would have made more money,” I said.  I was 11 and Jay was 5, that day our grandparents decided to pay us for each piece of chicken we consumed. They paid us $2 per piece, which was higher than the hourly minimum wage in 1973 in America’s heartland.

Sure, our parents had sometimes bribed us with dessert, the price to finish our dinner. But the idea of earning money for eating was different. Neither Jay nor I had met anyone else who was paid to eat. Our parents were just as shocked as we were.

My parents never paid me to bring home good grades, babysit my brother, clean my room. I did not realize the potential earning power connected with school, family duties, and chores, which other kids experienced. Now, I am not complaining about my parents. Jay and I were naïve, easy-going kids. We didn’t expect cash for chores, and we stayed out of trouble. We were also healthy kids despite not eating every vegetable. Therefore, I reasoned that our parents would not buy into paying us to eat. Yet, neither parent made a move to stop the suggested transaction by our pseudo grandparents.

Let me explain pseudo: Grandpa Jack and Grandma Joy were my uncle and aunt who acted like our grandparents. They were stand-ins for the grandparents who died before Jay and I were born.

“Come here and give me some sugar,” Joy exclaimed as if ten years had passed, not two weeks since we’d last seen her. Translation: Come give me a hug. Joy smelled of flowery perfume, Jergens lotion, and fresh hairspray. She wore her jet black hair short. Her lively eyes saw everything through cat-eye shaped glasses.  

Jack was quieter in his affection. He bent down to give us hugs. He smoked a pipe, and the cherry-tobacco scent lingered on his sweater. Jack had a deliberate, serious, and steady manner. He had thinning brown hair, gold wire-rim glasses, and a shy smile. Jack was as tall and lean as Joy was short and round. 

Jack taught my brother and me how to fish. Playing the part of a good grandpa, he baited my hook, helped reel in my sunfish, and cleaned what we caught. He played checkers with Jay. Joy played hymns on the organ with me, happily swaying from side to side. She taught me to knit basic hats and scarves, which I wore with pride. We benefited from their love and attention.

Our well-meaning aunt and uncle played their roles well. In fact, I was 12 when I learned the truth. Jack and Joy reared my father after his parents died. That was in 1939. My father lost his father and then his mother, leaving him an orphan at 8 years old. Jack was 22 years older than my father and the eldest brother of 13 children. He became my father’s guardian; my father’s two older sisters lived with another brother. Likely, my father felt he owed a debt to his brother, one he could never repay.     

Jack and Joy lived through the Great Depression, which spanned from 1929 to 1939. The Depression’s effect on their lives was like a zigzag deep scar. They remembered living without. The Depression was a time when everyone made sacrifices.  

My uncle was well educated and worked hard. He advanced from accountant to treasurer during his 31-year career with the nearby university. My sense was Jack and Joy felt blessed during the bleak economic times when others had little or no work, less food, and struggled to support their families. Still, I imagined my relatives lived a frugal life because many who grew up during the Depression lived by a different code. “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” was a familiar phrase because clothing, food, and everyday items were in short supply. 

Jack and Joy’s cluttered attic was proof they held onto their Depression era motto. Jay and I liked to explore the attic with Jack. The musty small space was chockful of trunks filled with worn but not worn-out quilts, empty fountain pens still ready for service, dated but treasured textbooks, and decades of family keepsakes.

Joy had another mantra, “waste not, want not,” doled out during dinner. It meant: Eat everything now so that you will not be hungry later. If she spotted a single scrap of food left on our plates, she shamed us into eating it.   

When our family stayed at their house, we had to follow their rules. Even though practicing “waste not, want not” often left us dreading dinner time. Well, I dreaded it more because I was a picky eater. However, I was the rare child who liked and ate abominable lima beans. We passed our plates, which returned with a glob of this and a blob of that. We had no choice but to eat every morsel (gulp, swallow, or chew) put on our plates.

“Have more casserole,” Joy said. I was a fan of her creamy cheesy grits casserole, with generous amounts of butter, cheddar cheese, and milk. After I agreed, she tricked me, passing instead the green bean casserole. Only the crunchy French’s crispy fried onion bits on top made it palatable.    

Moments later, “Finish your Jell-O salad,” Joy said, eyeing the solitary pineapple sliver on my plate. Usually, I had to spit out foul food into my napkin when nobody was watching because we didn’t have a dog under the table waiting for scraps.

In Joy’s mind, food was love. I supposed she felt unloved if we didn’t eat her food or felt rejected if we refused a second serving. Meanwhile, Jack focused on food as a blessing. His meal-time prayers always included, Thank you Lord for the food we are about to receive, and for the nourishment of our bodies. We showed our gratitude and love for our grandparents by simply eating.

KFC’s bucket of finger-lickin’ good chicken was a welcome guest at our grandparents’ house. Fast food from KFC was a treat reserved for reunions, picnics, and occasional Saturday afternoons. I swooned at the spicy sweet smell of 11 herbs and spices coating the chicken and the recognizable red and white striped bucket. Golden squishy dinner rolls, creamy sweet coleslaw, stiff mashed potatoes, and gooey gravy in Styrofoam cups served as the chicken’s supporting cast. I loved it all.   

On this one Saturday afternoon, the six of us sat in our usual places around the dinner table. We bowed our heads in prayer while Jack recited the usual blessing.

“Amen,” we all said.

When I opened my eyes, Jack stood up, smiling. Had he prepared a special speech about our KFC meal? No, Jack announced he was going to pay Jay and me for every piece of chicken we ate. Joy clasped her hands in excitement.  

I sensed my parent’s surprise. My mom frowned and narrowed her eyes. Perhaps she tried to kick my father under the table to say something, to stop it. But we all knew dad never made a scene, nor would he risk offending Jack and Joy.

We were in new territory. How much did Jack say he’d pay us? As I remember it, Jack pulled out his wallet filled with one-dollar bills. Did I hear a dollar? Or two dollars? Or all the money in his wallet?  The rules of this game were unclear.

Cue the song from the musical Oliver: “Food, Glorious Food,” which touted food is worth a king’s ransom. We liked chicken, but I wasn’t sure why Jack and Joy were gladly paying us a kid’s ransom to gobble up greasy KFC chicken, not home-cooked meals.

Years earlier, our family began donating to UNICEF to help feed poor children in faraway places. Now, I felt guilty profiting from eating food when children around the world didn’t have enough to eat.

Because he was the youngest, Jay got the first dibs on the bucket. He picked both drumsticks. Our family passed around the bucket, allowing everyone to choose their favorite piece. My first choice was the chicken breast, the largest piece. Usually, I ate only one piece because I liked the side dishes too. Our parents didn’t push us to eat more food if we said we were full. I thought of our family prayer that food was meant to sustain us.

We were not being timed to eat all the chicken we could eat in one sitting. Nobody was watching the clock. None of the adults were commenting on our table manners, either. Sadly, I was watching Jay’s plate piling up with bones. Two pieces down, and he reached for another piece, earning a smile from Joy. It hit me that Joy’s enthusiasm for eating had caused the “paid-by-the-piece” project.

Jay’s total tally was three pieces. I only ate one piece. My brother had earned enough to buy a coveted car, likely the Hot Wheels Dodge Challenger, or add to his baseball card collection. It didn’t make sense that we were being bribed to eat more. Jay, only 5, learned he could profit from this new one-time eating game. And I learned it wasn’t fair Jay could make more money that day, I mean, eat more chicken than me.  

Jack slipped me a $5 bill after dinner. It was our secret. In that moment, when he gave me an apologetic smile, I realized Jack was also confused about what happened.   

Thankfully, this misguided eating exercise was short-lived. Did my parents put the kibosh on this game? Had Jack and Joy decided their good intentions were wrong-headed? Did all the adults agree to stop because they were setting an awful precedent?  No one talked about it, and we never did it again.

Even today, I wonder why my Depression-era grandparents would reward us for an act as basic as eating. Perhaps, they decided they could afford to spoil us. I’m guessing they could not afford to spoil my childhood-aged father. Being generous seemed to make Jack and Joy happy.  

I’ll never know. But I was relieved.

Neither my brother nor I suffered from eating anxieties, nor turned competitive eating into a career. Still, “waste not, want not” stayed at the dinner table.

Jack and Joy returned to normal grandparent activities. Our family continued to visit Jack and Joy. We always addressed them as Grandpa Jack and Grandma Joy. Visits dwindled as our lives got busier, but we spent holidays, family reunions, and many birthdays together. I rarely thought about our KFC meals. But when the KFC franchise returned to my childhood hometown after a long hiatus, I craved the taste of original and extra crispy chicken. My mouth watered thinking about the amazing 11 herbs and spices. My mind wandered back to the time with my grandparents.

I promised myself every time I return home to buy a bucket of chicken for the family in line behind me, in memory of my grandparents — all of them. And grandparents everywhere. 

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