I'm sorry, do I look like the friggin' Colonel

July 4th
Piggott, AR
Incredible heat and humidity
Me
Kitchen
Serving Chicken.....oh wait, we've run out
A lot of pissed off southerners

Piggott has it's quite famous picnic every year on the fourth. It's been a tradition in my family for at least 50 years to attend and help out. This year I joined my family in the kitchen where the fried chicken dinner is sold. Two pieces of chicken (your choice of white or dark) and a bunch of fixins. It's really a good dinner, and very southern. It's so popular that at 1030 there is a line of at least 60-70 people waiting for the 11 opening. The line never dwindles until well after 1. My cousin Alex (one of the coolest people on the planet) and I are in the front of the line, I'm doing the chicken and the potatoes/gravy he's doing the corn and the green beans. I must first add, the "chicken nazi" as we nicknamed her, was overly concerned that I would be able to handle doing both the chicken and the potatoes. A concern that about drove her mad. Due to the lack of volunteers she didn't have a choice, however. Alex assured her it would be okay......for 20 min she stared at me, and never fear there were no problems. I didn't put the chicken where the potatoes go, didn't poor the gravy over the chicken.....it all managed to go smoothly. Until.....WE RAN OUT OF FRIGGIN CHICKEN. Really, it was still cooking, but we couldn't keep up, but also they didn't start cooking early enough.(there were two people in the whole town who could turn on the cooker, one was in the hospital, one was laying under the tree.....time to train someone under 80 I think!) Let me tell you, having to announce there was no chicken for about 10-15 min to a crowd of hot and hungry rednecks is perhaps the scariest thing I've ever done (including being a white Christian chick in Pakistan). As they were gathering the rope and getting the hangin' tree ready I decided it wouldn't be a good idea to add I am a yankee and married to a foreigner. People were yelling and griping at me as if I personally have any control over the chicken crisis. I must say, it's good to be back in quiet Mt. Vernon where the only thing I have to worry about is making sure I get to Wal-Mart before they close........oh wait, it's open 24 hours...phew, cause you have to have a place to buy shampoo, a new cd, and a gallon of milk at 2am!