This one time the fried chicken crushed the chair.

When my friend Amie lived here in Portland with me, we were compulsively social. We would invite random people over for dinner, make huge feasts and laugh our butts off. One Sunday, Amie made fried chicken. Now Amie was born and bred in Texas and if there's one thing she knows how to do, it's fry chicken. Crispy, juicy, seasoned perfectly with salt and pepper. Mmmm. Few things I like better.

Anyhow, I had set up the room with my old wooden chairs that I bought at an estate sale. They were folding chairs, but looked antique-y because they were wooden and beat up. I loved those chairs, even if they did wobble a bit. Everyone arrived and we started eating.

I can't remember what we were talking about - just that I was having a good time stuffing my face with chicken while talking. I got up for my second or third helping of chicken, laughing and talking, and plopped back down in my wooden chair, nonchalantly, and took a bite of the crispy chicken leg. Then, snap, splat and crunch, faster than I could get up for a fourth helping, my weak antique folding chair collapsed, crushed under the weight of my body.

I started laughing because otherwise I would have started crying. The guy from Africa that had joined us for dinner helped me up and said: "You should not eat so much chicken." Right around then a couple of words went through my head, but for the life of me I can't remember exactly what they were... I think one started with and f and ended with you. But I can't be sure.

It was a while before we invited people over for dinner after that.

I am going to visit Amie in Dallas this weekend. Stay tuned for reports from our adventures on the road with fried chicken, BBQ and TexMex. May all the chairs in Dallas survive.

*Picture from Epicurious.com and Gourmet, January 2008