The Big Chicken Game

Someone expressed curiosity about The Big Chicken Game I mentioned in my tribute to my mother. The story goes like this:

In the city of Atlanta, where my parents live, there is a Kentucky Fried Chicken (I think that's right) and the building is shaped like a giant red chicken head. Everyone refers to it as "The Big Chicken". It's really quite cute and unique and it's somewhat of a landmark.

Apparently, at some point in time someone invented a board game based on "The Big Chicken". Now, I wish I could tell you more about the board game- what the board looks like, the rules, how fun it is to play. But you see there is one little problem. My mother won't allow anyone to open it. She swears it's going to be worth a lot of money one day if we'll all just leave it alone in its tight little cellophane wrap. ( If I remember correctly she also has Big Chicken bath towels or something along those lines that we can't use!).

The Big Chicken game resides in the huge walk-in closet off of her bonus room. It's disguised among the many other board games that reside there, as if we won't notice it being that's it's red and all. The first time I saw it I was up there gathering games for us to play. I thought it looked interesting so I brought it down to the dining room table and said, "Let's play this one," as I reached to rip off the cellophane. My mother threw her entire body across that little board game and screamed, "No! Don't open it! It's going to be worth a lot of money someday!"

I laughed and thought she was joking. She wasn't. The look in her eye let me know that I was risking life and limb if I reached for that cellophane again. I said, "Mother, it's a chicken game. How much money can it possibly be worth?"

She would have none of it. It was a money magnet and she was going to keep it to pass down to her great grandchildren. Never mind her Thomas Kincaid oil paintings, her china, her crystal, her bling. Nope, her descendants were going to get a chicken game- "In its original cellophane!"

So we have this running family joke. Any time grandmother starts getting a little testy we mention the chicken game and how we're taking it to her funeral and right there on her casket we're ripping off that cellopane with total abandon and we are setting up that game and actually playing it. I don't think it would actually work though because I have a sneaky suspicion that somewhere in her will it says that she's to be buried clutching The Big Chicken Game- in it's original cellophane!