Dashboard Delights



Summer in the South is something that you experience. It is something you think you are looking forward to when you are bundled up in the winter. When the summer actually hits, it is not anything you actually want to endure. Anyone who has lived in the South knows what I am talking about. The heat does not so much surround you as it hangs off of you. You feel it in every pore and fiber of your being. What the sun doesn't get to, the humidity does.


I remember when I was a younger man living in the South, I had a piece of fried chicken. I know what you are probably thinking… "Fried chicken in the South; how cliché!" Well, clichés happen for a reason, so let me get on with my story. I sat my piece of chicken in the dashboard of a friend's car while we went indoors to do something. I do not remember at this time what we were doing, but I am sure it is wholly unimportant to the direction of the story, so just get it out of your head. The important thing is that when I returned to the car, the chicken was crispy and delicious like it had just been removed from the grease.


Being an adventurous guy, I ventured a bite into the chicken. It was by far the best tasting piece of reheated chicken I had ever tasted. Little did I know I was being green in the days before being green was cool. From that day forward I tried all manner of foods in the dashboard for a reheat. I even kept a log of the different kinds of foods, the temperature on the mercury and the model of the car. I even mentioned the direction of the car and the tint of the window. I tried front dash, back window and even the seat. I became a dashboard foodie.


As it turned out, the optimal environment for reheating foods was on the front dashboard of a black, Lincoln Town Car facing in the northwestern direction in the later part of the day when the temperature is between 95 and 105 degrees outside. The effect was like putting food in a 350 degree oven. Pop something thing the dash and come back later for a delicious treat. While I did not get many people to catch on to my food craze, it did give people food for thought the next time they were about to leave their dog in the car while they ran inside for a few groceries.

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