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Where'd it go?

Sometimes I can't remember where I put my keys (my husband would say "Sometimes? Try three times a day.")
Quite often, I wander around the office parking lot trying to remember where I parked my car.
I'm horrible at remembering people's names. Even after I have known them for months.
Memory is an odd thing.

How come, when I have such troubles as listed above, am I haunted by an occurrence that happened seven or eight years ago while dining at a cajun/creole restaurant in Utah with my then-fiancé? While we were enjoying our jambalaya and such, we were caught up in a simple song playing semi-softly on the establishment's stereo system.

"Who stole my chicken"

Those four words, repeated again and again in the chorus of this song, for whatever reason, sent us into hysterics. We now mention it when we eat chicken. See chickens. Talk about chickens on Old MacDonald's farm. We replace the word chicken with an array of nouns (or is it an adjective? or adverb? see I can't remember grammar rules, but I remember the tune to..."who stole my chicken...").

Who stole my keys? Who stole my tennis shoes? Who stole my underwear (the dog...we know...the dog)?

Why do we remember this? Who sang the song? Why did he sing it? Did he suffer great hunger because someone volé-d his poulet?

We looked up "who stole my chicken" on iTunes. Finally, our desire to once again hear this obscure ditty would be sated.

And then, the only song we could find about poultry thievery was "They Stole My Chicken" by Keith Frank. I know. What are the chances there'd be TWO cajun/creole songs about a stolen chicken? Is this the same tune? We listened to the snippet and it just didn't sound quite right to us. It didn't send our toes tapping. We didn't wax nostalgic. Are we going to risk 99 whole cents downloading a tune that may prove to be an imposter? Or is it simply not as magical a song as it seemed that day. Had we been caught up in a magical moment, when the stars aligned, the zydeco accordion wheezed a perfect melody, the scent of sizzling beignets swept us into an incoherent frenzy.

Maybe we'll just skip the download. Let it live in our past with perfection, stewing in its cayenne-spiced juices.

Comments

Brianne said…
Perhaps "They Stole My Chicken" is the response song to "Who Stole My Chicken?"... eh?? Eh??

I took it upon myself to do some research to figure out who the elusive master is behind Who Stole My Chicken and I have come out of it with four conclusions/observations:
1) The word "stole" no longer looks like a word,
2) You guys were the only people to ever hear this song as it was the only time it was ever played because I cannot find a record of it anywhere,
3) I would rather look up this song and who sang it rather than research what I am supposed to be research, the reason behind why rich snobs don't want to pay a million dollars for a house in Lenexa... and
4) the thing I found that made me abruptly end my research was this from Jeeves, "Man stole chicken; killed it during sex in a motel room."

TMI Jeeves, TMI.
FletcherDodge said…
Amy,
You know, I have a similar problem with Peanut Butter Jelly Time. For years I haven't been I able to get that song out of my head. I thought I was over it until a few months ago when I was ambushed by a reference to it in an episode of The Family Guy. Now it's back in my head with a vengance.

Oh well. At least it still makes me smile.

"Peanut Butter Jelly
Peanut Butter Jelly
Peanut Butter Jelly wid a baseball bat!"
Brianne said…
Yes! I love the Peanut Butter Jelly Time song! It cracks me up. Reminds me of something Brett does... I think I'll stop there.

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