The Fest That Wasn't

Promises, promises...

Reality, reality...

Let's see...chicken or wurst...hummmm..oh, you have fries....hummmm

The prizes

I came to this chicken fest and all I got was this lousy wurst!

Alright, boys....torch 'em!

Saturday saw the annual Hahnenfest (Chicken Festival) in the quaint, narrow-streeted town of Queidersbach.  The thought spilled into my imagination.  Chicken festival.  Talking chickens?  Chickens winning games of tic-tac-toe?  Fairest chicken at the fair contest?

If there’s one thing I wanted, it was an “I survived the salmonella at the Hahnenfest” t-shirt, or maybe a hat, with the bill in the shape of a beak.  I was primed for some fowl play.  Would we stand in a big circle for a group chicken dance?

“How long is this line?” my wife asked.  Despair crept into her voice, like a chicken who’d just noticed the carving knife and bloody apron.

“You want that in miles, or kilometers?”

The first twenty or thirty minutes went by rapidly, meaning I had time to count the number of people, figure out the prime numbers, listen to the pair behind me whet my appetite with a riveting tale of blood sucking vampires and deathless zombies, and listen to Barbara and Dirk, the featured band, belt out Top 40 hits, while their electronics sucked the juice out of Queidersbach.  In the growing darkness, I could see the lights of the town begin to flicker and die.  I felt a kinship.

In another twenty minutes, the line had sped forward another twelve feet.

“Quit complaining,” my wife said helpfully.  “There’s chicken up ahead.”

This was not a fest.  This was a line on the top of a hill, leading to chickens.  There were no games.  There were no booths selling whatnots, no pony rides for the kids, no groups drinking half liters of brew.  There were no t-shirts.  No hats.  The teenager behind us murmured, “This is not a chicken fest; this is a line fest.”

We discovered a second line to buy drink tickets, which would allow you to go to another line to claim your poison.  I sent the wife for two beers and a bottle of schnapps. She returned with tickets for water and beer, but no water or beer.  I was the only one who noticed the discrepancy.

The guy in front of us had been clean-shaven when we started, but was starting to look a little shaggy.  Time did not march on.  Time had been laid off and was searching for another job.

“Why don’t you go check to see if there are still chickens?” my wife suggested.

She had a point and I sprang forward before my legs could atrophy.  I found the sticking point at the place where you ordered the food.  A mother and her three small children, in line since they were infants, trying to decide.  Bear in mind there were three choices:  chicken, bratwurst, French fries.  This was not a menu requiring the skills of Mr. Memory.  Flies buzzed.  People in line moved nervously.  Horses in the next pasture watched for a while, then got bored and ambled away.  Chickens mumbled, “Kill me now!”

At the two-hour point my wife said I shouldn’t talk so loud.  I thought I’d been talking to myself.  Hunger, thirst, and two hours of aimless standing on the side of a hill will do that to a man.

“Look at those flies,” I said, reaching out and trying to grab one.

“There are no flies,” my wife said.

“Well, there used to be.”

Two hours turned to two and a half.  The temperature, which had begun at a balmy seventy degrees, had dropped like my hopes and dreams to a chilling sixty.  The crowd began to nervously stamp its feet.  Some hunger stricken patrons pitched tents; others pulled their children close and cried openly as a family.  Priests roved around giving last rites.

At the three-hour mark, we were three patrons away from the ordering place.  I knew somehow this was false hope, meant to further confuse and demoralize.

It began to rain.  In Germany this time of year, rain does not mean drizzle.  It had been sunny when we arrived.  Sunny and seventy degrees.  I had also had a mild hunger.  Now I was battling starvation and losing.

At three hours and fifteen minutes, we reached the finish line.  I blurted out to the ordering maid, “three half chickens and two fries.”  Turned out that was the beginning of negotiations.  Did I have the correct change?  We searched our pockets and came up victors. 

“That’s three half chickens?” the ordering maid asked.

I told her it was.  The crowd behind me was getting restless again.  People get that way when they’re cold and being pelted by rain drops the size of marbles.

“How many fries?”

“Two.”

“Ok, that’s three half chickens and two fries.  Is that correct?”

Behind me, I could hear discussion, followed by threats.

“You’ll have to wait a moment on the fries.”

Behind me was the sound of cocking pistols.

Before war erupted, we grabbed our order and raced away to a friend’s house to eat our chicken and soggy fries. 

“This chicken is ok,” I offered, “But not worth three hours.”

“No chicken is worth three hours,” my wife said.

Now she tells me.