For a change, I am not the butt of the joke in this story. Disappointing, I know, but my brothers are big goofballs too.
This one is about 20 years old. Me, Stosh and lil bro Ger are driving around in North Carolina. (I’ll pause while you ladies fantasize about that picture…. Done? OK, back to the story). Can’t remember what the hell we were doing, but in the course of the drive we see a billboard for the “Famous Tic-Tac-Toe Playing Chicken”. How cool is that? Of course we have to stop. If you are within 250 nautical miles of Chattanooga Tennessee, you HAVE TO “See Rock City”. If you come across the “Famous Tic-Tac-Toe Playing Chicken” you HAVE TO check it out.
The FTTTPC lived in a cage with a Tic-Tac-Toe grid on the floor. You’d put a buck into the machine, a light would go off, the chicken got all excited and the game began. The human player entered his moves on a keypad and the chicken pecked a spot (getting a yummy treat when she made her move). You went back and forth until the game was over. Not a bad life for a chicken. At least it beats being the $2.95 special at KFC.
Ger decided that he had to be the one to play the chicken, which was fine with me and Stosh. He plays and – it was just such a beautiful moment – HE LOSES! Not a cat’s game folks. He got his ass whipped at tic-tac-toe by a chicken. Gawd it was wonderful.
Being a Trzupr, Ger knows that Stosh and I aren’t going to let this story go until Alzheimer’s sets in, and there is a reasonable chance that we will choose this story to be the one we babble over and over even then. Ger knows that somebody like Al Gore is going to invent the internets so one of his bastard brothers can post the story for all the world to see and suggest that someone link it at Free Republic, where Ger posts as Hegewisch Dupa, so that all of his blogging buddies can enjoy it too. He is, in a word, miserable.
We get back in the car, drive off and, after about 20 minutes of me and Stosh making fun of him for losing to a CHICKEN, Ger has had enough, leading him to utter the most famous line/defense in Trzupr family history:
“But – but – THE CHICKEN PLAYS ALL THE TIME!!!!”
For Ger.
Carefree memories of yesteryear. Wonderful stuff. Thanks for sharing. At 57, I have to say I miss the 50’s and 60’s. I never witnessed the angst apparently prevelant in Revolutionay Road.
So when did we start to become disallusioned? I’m thinking the day John Kennedy was assassinated. Any thoughts?
BTW: Thanks for including the navigational links above every thread. Makes it easy to read through the posts and leave my idiotic comments.
I wish other blogs would do the same (not that I visit any other blogs). If I did visit any other blogs like Big Hollywood, I would want those navigational linkspresent. It’s a pain always going back to the Home page to start the next thread.
So a big TCT thumbs up (not that I have thumbs) to Freedonia!
Rufus here; just one of many, many ways we are superior to that rookie, Big Hollywood effort Nolte’s got himself messed up with.
But — was it a different chicken? They do play all the time, right?
I don’t get it.
Kath – you almost got me.
Almost.
TCT – Was it the 60’s that did us in? Once everybody decided that they could save the world by bringing communism to South Viet Nam, it seems like we’ve been on some variant of the same kick ever since. So many people are so fat, dumb and happy in their own lives, that they have the time and energy to “save the world” – or, more properly in 2009 – to “save the planet”.
I recall telling the Chicken Story to an audience at a party and one woman was horrified. “Oh the poor chicken, locked up in that cage!” she cried. “Lady, if the chicken wasn’t doing that, don’t you think she’d be rotating on a spit somewhere?” I replied.
She didn’t get it.
I was just trying to make your poor, poor brother feel better.
That is awesome! How can anyone, or anything, lose to a chicken?! If I ever meet Ger I promise to bring it up.
TCT – Was it the 60’s that did us in? Once everybody decided that they could save the world by bringing communism to South Viet Nam, it seems like we’ve been on some variant of the same kick ever since.
I’m not sure when it was. Seems like his death made everyone start to realize that Camelot did not exist and the country was a mean place. Of course, many groups already knew this, but white middle class America was just starting to realize it. Watergate and Vietnam was a culmination of what was building up over time.
It was at the Cherokee Indian reservation in (amazingly) Cherokee, NC.
And you might want to rethink that dream career in stand-up – you blew the punch line.
What the boy actually said afterwards was:
“But the chicken got the first move!”
Did that really happen? ‘Cuz I heard of a feller who lost to a hen playin’ chickers.
And how many brothers are there? I’m countin’ four … so far.
Long as I got good writers, I’ll do fine Stosh.
(Don’t know why I always get that line wrong though!)
Four brothers and that’s it on the male side Texacali. We also have two sisters, smushed in between the Crazy Gene/Stosh and Rich/Ger pairings. However, they are also honorary brothers!
And yep, that’s an honest to God true story. (Save the fact that Stosh remembered the punch line correctly and I didn’t).
I do wonder if Ger could beat a chicken at checkers now. Have to figure out how to arrange that…
Don’t say beat a chicken … not here. This is a family post.
Oh, chicken beating is legal in Threedonia. No worries. Chicken choking, on the other hand… Threedonia’s own Sherrif Onan don’t take kindly to that.
Hate to burst your bubble, but it’s fixed. Ger never had a chance:
http://www.casinochicken.com/faqs.htm
And the chicken lived happily ever after…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmZ-wApjUlE