An announcement finally came.
"Can I have your attention, please. I don't know
what to say, so I'll just say it. There's no more chicken."
A baby shrieked, as if on cue.
Customers sitting at tables craned their necks to look at
the plump, middle-aged woman standing behind them offering the apology. She had
snuck over while families and friends at the restaurant fidgeted with their
utensils, sitting stony-faced and impatient, some attempting to comfort their
small children.
"There is chicken pot pie and wings though,"
she said.
"What wings?" I asked. "The wings of
chickens?"
"Yes, chicken wings."
"So there is
more chicken, in wing form and in pie?"
"In a way."
Customers grumbled and shrugged at each other. Tables and
booths of patrons got up to leave. The manager shrugged too.
"I don't know what to say."
Nobody had died, I thought. Nobody was just diagnosed
with cancer. Those are the tough situations where consoling words, the words 'I
don't know what to say' evaporate. This situation existed on an absurd plane,
up there with a dog chasing its tail and Doug Ford as Premier of Ontario. Any
explanation would suffice.
"There's a Metro grocery store across the parking
lot," Julie said to me. "Do you wanna just buy a chicken and bring it
back?"
Christmastime with the Schapman family always holds some
adventure, whether that be shooting off forty rounds of ammo from a
semi-automatic at the neighbourhood firing range, or laying down a concrete
floor just for fun. Paul Schapman had
come all the way from Virginia St. Hubert , I could understand, but the Swiss Chalet fandom I
find unwarranted. And now, in the festive gloom of an empty restaurant devoid
of chicken, five hungry adults had to make a decision.
"Let's order wings," said Paul. "And the
pie."
The Schapman sisters, Julie and Linda, began punching
each other to pass the time. The smack of fist to humerus reverberated through
the abandoned dining room. I was wise not to sit in
between the sisters. I have made that mistake before, many, many times.
Two teenaged servers made their way to our table, heads
lowered.
"I have some bad news," said the more senior of
the two, "there is no pastry on top of the chicken pot pie."
"So ... it's ... stew, then," I said.
"No, it's still pie," the other one asserted.
I didn't know whether to laugh or flip the table over. I
was famished but now wary of eating anything coming out of that kitchen. Images
of microscopic salmonella bacteria multiplying flashed in my mind's eye.
"Do you have any crackers?"
The servers scurried away and returned with armfuls of
crackers, depositing them in a pile on our table. I tore into the individually
wrapped saltines while the Schapman sisters drank wine and Paul explained to me
the nature of his IT work in Virginia Guelph , Ontario
The wings arrived eventually, dripping in some sort of
sauce. Paul chowed down and the sisters picked at the offerings. I abstained
and finished off the crackers. We called over the manager.
"Rough night for you, eh?"
"What can I do? The chicken ran out."
"One chicken, or all of them?"
She thought for a second and then smiled. "Oh. Now I get it. Now I get it!"
"Any Lindor chocolates to go with our festive
meal?" I asked hopefully.
Her expression dropped. "I don't know what to say,
but --
Merry Christmas and a
Happy New Year from Cbennettworld.
