Chicken Shit Bingo!

Chicken Shit Bingo is pretty straightforward. As a matter of fact, once your eyes adjust to the dimness of Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon, you pretty much can’t miss the game.

The bar is small, hot, and packed with Lone-Star-sippin’ Texans. Directly inside the entrance is a pool table with a bitchin’ NASCAR lamp hanging above it, casting its light upon a custom-made chicken coop. The floor of the coop (actually just a sheet of plywood on top of the pool table) has a grid drawn on it, with a number in each square; you pay Ginny $2, and she hands you a ticket with a number on it.

Pretty soon all the numbers are sold (I got #48, not a winner). Ginny puts the chicken in the coop, and sprinkles grain across the floor. The chicken walks around, pecking absentmindedly, until it poops on one of the numbered squares. And whoever holds the winning ticket gets the pot!

Chicken Shit Bingo has been going on every Sunday afternoon for more than five years now. Ginny’s might be just another dive bar all week, but on Sundays it’s so full that the crowd spills out into the parking lot. Most weeks, you can catch Dale Watson playing real down-Texas country; the bingo winner gets to pick either the $150 pot, or whatever money’s in Dale’s pocket. Most folks bank on the right-front pocket, and come out with a nice chunk of change. And for those not lucky enough to have a hen defecate on their magic number, there’s plenty of fun to be had: $2 Lone Stars, great dancin’ music, free hot dogs from the crock pot, and (when conversation falters) a little good-natured chicken-heckling.

Speaking of which, for you PETA types: There have been several chickens over the years, and from what I can see they’re well treated. After each “game” our hen got a good long break to collect its thoughts & bowels. And nobody but Ginny is allowed to touch.

As for me, this isn’t exactly the type of thing I normally write about. But I thought you-all would enjoy it. Next time you’re in Austin, promise me you’ll drop in… and now back to our regularly scheduled programming!