Chicken it is, I guess



I took a couple of weeks off from my column, and that means that I’ve got plenty to talk about this week.

First of all, let me burst a few bubbles out there. No matter where I go, for the past 12 years, people always say to me “Your wife is such a sweet person”, or “You sure are lucky to have such a sweet wife like that”. Well now, folks. Let’s all pump our brakes and slow down just a bit.

All year long, for as long as I can remember, I look forward to the St. Mary’s Fall Festival. It’s a local church bizarre, and for the last couple of years my wife has been very involved in it. There are games for the kids, plenty of socializing, and all the money raised goes to a great cause.

But the thing I enjoy most about it is the food. That’s what keeps me dreaming about it all year long. What I do is wait ‘till about noon or so, and I go get me a couple of fajita tacos and a, um, cold beverage (It’s a Catholic church, don’t panic.). Then I mill about for a while, talking a little football with a few buddies and trying to hide from my kids so they don’t ask me for more money. After an hour or two I mosey on over and get a plate of the best spaghetti that you’ve ever tasted. (And ladies, please don’t tell me your spaghetti is the best. Unless you are Italian, you aren’t even in the conversation. Sorry.)

Anyway, I had to work all day this past Sunday and couldn’t make it to the bizarre. First time in years that I’ve missed it. I kept thinking that somehow, someway, my wife would find a way to get me a couple of fajita tacos.

“She loves me,” I told myself. “And she knows how much I love those tacos. There’s no way she won’t take care of me.” And I’d wait another hour or so, and look up again. “Surely someone she knows was coming this way at least. I’ll bet she sends me something with them.” An hour or two later, and still nothing.

I finally gave up on the tacos about 2:00 p.m. or so, but still held out hope that she would bring me a plate of spaghetti home. My sister even sent me a picture on my phone of my son, knee deep in a plate of it. He was using a pitchfork to shovel it in, and he had sauce all over his face. Surely my wife paid for me a plate at the same time that she bought my son a plate, right?

“That’s the ticket,” I said to myself. “A good ol’ pile of spaghetti, with homemade meatballs, and maybe a few pieces of bread. Perfect.”

So I finally get through mowing and weed eating at 5:00, and on my way home I give her a call.

“Do y’all have any tacos or spaghetti left?”

“I don’t think so,” she told me. “I think they have a few hamburgers left over.”

Hamburgers? What the? I don’t want a hamburger. You can get a hamburger at Sonic (Although they put the vegetables and the meat upside down. Another topic for another column.) You can get a hamburger at Dairy Queen. Hell, you can get a hamburger anywhere.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s been really busy, and I haven’t even eaten myself.” I had to settle for a greasy box of chicken and a jalapeno.

I can hear a lot of you readers saying “Shannon, she was working for the church. Give her a break.” But like most stories in life, this one has two sides. A darker side. A sinister side.

As it turns out, the investigation revealed that indeed, her mother brought her a fajita taco at 11:36 a.m. It had meat, guacamole, pico de gallo and a touch of sour cream. She just didn’t think about me as she inhaled it.

Let the record also show that at 6:42 p.m., minutes after she arrived home, I walked into the kitchen and witnessed her spinning her fork in the last bit of spaghetti on a plastic plate. I never even got a bite.

There, folks, is your “sweet little wife”. A woman that would let her husband shrivel up and blow away into the wind from hunger, were it not for his own survival skills… and the chicken place.