Winging It

How to use your Kosmos BBQ sauce, wing dust, and dry rub

1. Fry up some chicken wings.

2. Toss them in your preferred sauce, dust, or rub.

3. Enjoy.

4. Keep enjoying.

5. Enjoy so much that you make another batch of wings.

6. Toss these in the rub.

7. Enter them into a dry wing contest.

8. Collect the cash prize of $500, which you don’t need; you’re surprisingly flush with cash right now.

9. Meet one of the judges in the parking lot.

10. Listen as he explains he works for a major wing sauce and rub company, and he wants to be their new culinary director.

11. Nod when he tells you that you have two days to concoct and present a new rub, and if the board likes what they taste, you could be looking at a major contract and an annual salary that’s nearly equivalent to the remaining amount in the duffel bag under your bed.

12. Go home.

13. Allow the full extent of your cheating and deception to dawn on you.

14. Realize you don’t know the first thing about making a rub; you just used the stuff you bought off a deal site.

15. Fall asleep brainstorming.

16. Wake in the middle of the night to your doorbell ringing and a paper sliding under the door.

17. Read the paper: “I know what you did.”

18. Panic! This could be your big break, and now some creep is threatening to expose you!

19. Keep working on your rub recipe.

20. Fall asleep again the next night brainstorming.

21. Wake up moments before the doorbell rings and another page is slid under your door.

22. Rush out.

23. Chase down whoever it is who’s threatening you.

24. Tackle the guy.

25. Shake him and say, “Are you trying to ruin my chance at becoming the god of fried poultry? Huh? Just because I used a little pre-made rub in a contest, I’m supposed to forfeit the opportunity of a lifetime? Is that what you want?”

26. Grow confused when he tells you, no, his notes have nothing to do with some wing contest; what he was insinuating was that you were responsible for the series of violent robberies that occurred between February and August of last year.

27. Laugh as you help him back to his feet.

28. Explain that what he’s suggesting is impossible; the period he’s describing coincides perfectly with a stretch you were on an experimental antibiotic for a rash on your palms that wouldn’t go away. It left you too tired to do anything. In fact, you were in something like a fugue state for the duration, and you have almost no recollection of that time in your life at all.

29. Realize you did confess your wing crime to him.

30. Pay him off with money from the duffel under your bed. (How’d that thing get there, by the way? Eh, that’s something to worry about another time when you’re less stressed!)

31. Fall asleep again working on your wing recipe.

32. Have another one of those weird dreams where you’re carrying out another violent robbery. (Kinda strange how those dreams feel so real, right? More like memories than dreams.)

33. Wake up.

34. Combine equal parts salt and pepper in a jar.

35. Bring this to your meeting with the wing sauce and rub company.

36. Watch as the board members sprinkle the mixture onto some wings.

37. Listen to their praise: it’s a rub, the board says, that isn’t afraid to let the chicken taste like chicken; it’s understated yet genius; it’s self-confident; it’s delicious.

38. Sign a lucrative deal to be their new culinary director with the following Monday as your start date.

39. Leave the office.

40. Find the parking lot full of cop cars, waiting for you.

41. Face the music.

NOTE: Steps 4 through 41 are optional.