Where’s the F—ing Chicken?!!!

Coeur d’alene, Idaho isn’t an easy geographical region to spell.  Googling it or describing its location when using a GPS system or a local phone book may drive one crazy.  One day, in this unfair city, no one required a map or GPS to locate my sister, Mary.  She made it loud and clear where she could be spotted, not only in the State of Idaho, but, additionally, the Pacific Northwest. It wasn’t “Where’s Waldo?” It was, rather, “We know exactly where Mary is.”

I truly believe she made the F word almost Biblical one sunny afternoon.  (I don’t really remember, but I hope it was a Sunday after we had just completed our weekly term of duty…Catholic Mass.)

My mother made a hell of a fried chicken, and some of our family members, including me, were vacationing forty five minutes away to have a picnic in a city in Idaho I’m tired of spelling.  Seven months pregnant with her third child, my sister, Mary, was aboard the station wagon.  She was also hungry, or as I’ve learned with my urban dictionary wisdom, hangry.

With mom’s potato salad on ice, and an angry, pregnant mother (Mary) looking as if she was a shark with chum in the cab, we found a parking space ten minutes away from a picnic table.  Knowing she was settled in a proper space and spying the table, everyone, including Mary, felt at ease.  That’s a terrific feeling when you are afraid of your sister.

Upon sitting on the picnic table stools, Mary recognized Mom forgot the chicken, and all Hell broke Mary loose.  She began calmly.  “F–K!” Embarrassing our mother as the brothers decided to take a dip in the lake, we heard Mary scream,  from a little less than a mile away, and to everyones’ terror, “Where’s the F—ing Chicken?!! Even the ants scattered.

I’ve never been pregnant, and I don’t wish to be.  Men are blessed by God in certain ways. There were times when Mary should have been blessed in the same way.

The memory didn’t scar me.  It merely etched, or branded a memory I won’t forget.  When we returned from the beach at a safe time, we were blessed with some grocery store fried chicken along with mom’s potato salad.  We were additionally blessed with a sister returning from fried chicken hell to Fried Chicken bliss.

God Bless her.