A Story

Funny Hole In The Wall Story of the .... [insert period of time here]

Back in law school there was a place that was supposed to have the best fried chicken in town. It was called Richard's Chicken. The restaurant was in an unusual part of town and a bit difficult to get to and definitely not on the way to anywhere, unless you're into meth. In which case it was probably on the way to a guy's house with a meth lab in the basement. I'm just guessing, judging by the area.

Anyways, some friends and I went over there one time in early September and there was a sign on the door that said, "Gone huntin' an fishin'. Be back later". In Fort Worth, Dallas, or Austin this would have been a gimmick. It would have been a message burned into a piece of wood that you can buy at Cracker Barrel. However, this sign was serious, and it was written on a piece of paper taped to the door. Notice that I typed the wording on the sign as it actually appeared. Needless to say, I was disappointed. But anybody who would shut down their restaurant to take off for a vacation was my type of restaurant owner. So I was excited. It was dove season, and a friday afternoon. I decided to return at the end of September on a day in the middle of the week.

I came back, and the sign was still there. Well, maybe he was on some exotic safari or maybe he's moose hunting up in Alaska. Both of those hunts can occur in September. Surely this is a Teddy Roosevelt reincarnate with a passion for good chicken. I'm going to like this guy, so I thought.

Things got busy for me, and I wasn't able to make it back in October like I had planned. But finally, on a brisk March day, I loaded up a vehicle full of friends who had been waiting as anxiously as I for some chicken and we headed to Richard's, for what was to be the greatest chicken of our lives. I still don't know why we thought this would be the chicken to end all chickens. Maybe we convinced ourselves that he used some lost Yucatan Chicken flock that was all meat, no bone and a cayenne flavored layer of fat that melted into the crispy crust. Who knows. I'll tell you who doesn't know. Me. On this brisk March day, we pulled into an empty Richard's parking lot...once again... and saw that famous (or infamous) sign about huntin'. Next to it, we saw a new sign. "For Lease".

It was over. Richard had gone huntin' and fishin' too long apparently. Our chicken mission failed. We never got to experience the sweet succulence of the rare Yucatan Chicken thigh. Richard broke my heart that day.

A few weeks later I got to thinking about something. Have you seen the suspense or thriller films (think the sixth sense) where everything is going along just fine, and then the main character realizes everything is not as it seems? I started to wonder if maybe that "For Lease" sign had been there forever, and I never saw it because I was so blinded by my chicken lust. That feeling will always haunt me.

If you'll notice, I did not refer to this as Richard's Hicken. If you didn't notice it, go back a few months and read about my Hicken experience. It's very important to be caught up in this stuff, plus it increases my hit count. But the reason this was a chicken place and not a hicken place is because this occurred before the hicken incident. Its important to be chronologically correct.