A short story about an unnecessary road trip for fried chicken.
Have you ever had a craving so strong that you sought far and long to acquire it? Years ago, my Mom craved fried chicken on a day and was determined to eat it despite a chicken shortage from her then favorite fast-food restaurant.
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Mom's Fried Chicken Craving Phase
My Mom craved fried chicken almost daily during some strange phase in her sixties. The craving lasted for a couple of years before she scaled back on her fried chicken consumption.
At the time, Mom only ate fried chicken from a single Church's Chicken restaurant location in the city. There were several locations, but only one made fried chicken to her liking for some obscure reason. (The fried chicken from the various locations tasted the same to me.)
Mom visited the location almost weekly and made a large order to save some pieces for leftovers. I sometimes drove her there on my Saturday's off from work. What normally took a few minutes to drive to a nearby location turned into a multiple hours’ long road trip.
The Great Chicken Hunt
A few days after a major storm, Mom asked me to drive her to get fried chicken. My first dog, Shadow, joined us for what was supposed to be a short drive.
When we arrived to make an order, the person at the drive-thru speaker apologized because they never received their shipment of chicken. All they had were chicken strips.
Unfortunately, Mom did not like chicken strips. In fact, she would not eat anything other than drumsticks at the time. After throwing a fit (her middle name should be Karen), she asked me to drive her to another location in the city.
It turned out that none of the locations within the city limits received their shipment of chicken. The recent storms understandably delayed the delivery drivers.
I recommended other food franchises to fulfill Mom's fried chicken craving. Mom insisted on Church's Chicken. So, she convinced me to drive her to a location in a neighboring city.
None of the neighboring cities had fried chicken. A few had the 'forbidden' chicken strips, but others were closed.
I should have assertively told Mom I was done searching for non-existent fried chicken. I was exhausted after a long week of nine-to-ten-hour workdays.
I wanted to go home to my apartment and relax by playing video games. Instead, the people pleaser in me appeased Mom's demands to drive further. That, and Shadow loved road trips. At least he was happy.
After driving around much of Central Texas for hours, we finally arrived at a Church's Chicken that I decided was our last stop. Mom, famished, agreed.
Fortunately, we pulled up to a restaurant that was opened. We were informed one last time that they were out of fried chicken but had some chicken strips left. Mom finally accepted and ordered some for the three of us. They were out of sides, but we at least we finally ate that day.
The Death of Mom's Fried Chicken Craving
I never knew why Mom's fried chicken craving started. However, I know it died a couple of years later when her favorite Church's Chicken location closed down. She believed that the other locations did not make fried chicken as well as that one location.
Mom's food cravings nowadays are short-lived. For example, she may crave grilled chicken from Golden Chick for a day or two. If Mom craved grilled chicken and could not get it from Golden Chick for whatever reason, she will get food from another restaurant or eat what she has at home. No more food hunting for us!
What's Next?
For dinner, I think I will fry some chicken! Just kidding. I rarely eat fried chicken. Instead, I will help myself to a taco bowl in honor of Taco Tuesday.
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Thanks, and have a great day!
Simply Jelly Jam
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