A fowl entry
I hate chickens. Loathe them. What's worse, I fear them utterly.
I'm not talking about the succulent yardbirds you get at whatever famed BBQ place you have in your area--because that would just be a damn shame--but the ones BEFORE the chopping block. Live ones. Horrifyingly alive...yet undead...ones.
I don't know what it is about them, so perhaps someone here can tell me. I don't mind turkeys, I don't mind ducks or geese. (Well, you can have the geese as those unconscionable fuckers will chase you across a park and rip a chunk out of your tuckus if given half the chance, but I'm just sayin'.)
Is it their dirty feathers? Is it the way they shamble around in jerky motions as if they're confused which way is backwards and which way is forwards? Or is it the complete absence of sentience in their unnaturally spiralled pupils that tells you by all rights they should be dead, but somehow are not? They terrify me. They terrify me like nothing else in this world ever could.
There's a name for this particular fear:
skyblade: "Pollophobia?"
sexion8: "I'm quoting that."
skyblade: "No, I seriously think that's what it's called."
Be that as it may, Google disagrees and calls it Alektorophobia (which makes me think of...electricity, actually, but I'll go with it.)
Also, knowing there's a clinical name for this fear does absolutely nothing to dispel it, so guess what, Freud? YOU WERE DEAD WRONG. I mean, you were dead to begin with, but you're also wrong.
Strangely enough, I have never had a nightmare about chickens. And if you're at all familiar with my journal, you'll remember I have the ability to recall my dreamscapes with frightening clarity, so I should know. Maybe my phobia of chickens is so total, not even my psyche wants to enounter them, hence the absence of chicken-related dreams.
Of which I'm totally, TOTALLY grateful, by the way.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the bright idea of going to the zoo we have here in the city. It's a modest affair, only 3 acres, but I hadn't been since I was a wee little conservationist; I wanted to check it out. Pineapple agreed readily as he is also an animal lover, so we grabbed lunch and headed into North Town, looking forward to a relaxing afternoon.
Little did we know that not more than 40 minutes later our relaxing afternoon would turn quite hellish.
We pulled up and parked on the dirt shoulder across the street from the zoo. It's walls were cheerily painted with monkeys and lions reclining amongst foliage and fauna as a huge wooden sign boasted "OVER 200 SPECIES OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS!". We excitedly climbed out of the car and hand-in-hand, walked across the road.
I should've known things had taken a bad turn when we entered the ranch-style gates and Pineapple abruptly stopped and said, "I have a feeling we're not going inside."
Following his eyes, I saw what is perhaps the worst sight a phobiac can see--the object of their phobia. Or objects, as there were currently about 20 chickens clustered around the cashier window, walking freely.
Horrified, I could only stare at them. There they were, all colors, all sizes. A few roosters towered over the females, tails held aloft and mishappen heads darting hither and thither searching for soft eyeballs to pluck out.
Covering my mouth with my hand, I somehow held the bile down. My other hand tightened in Pineapple's to the point of cutting off his blood supply. I felt the sun dim and the planet shift on it's axis--and still I stared. Stared and stared as one would stare at a bottomless precipice before the leap. Swallowing tightly, I courageously announced that we should go in anyway.
Looking supremely doubtful, Pineapple asked, "You sure? Because we can leave right now and just go to the movies or something."
"No, no. We'll go in. It'll be ok," I replied in a falsetto. My voice gets very, very childlike when frightened out of my wits.
"I'm telling you, we don't have to go in," he insisted. Later on he wouldn't exactly TELL me he told me so? But the statement was there hovering between us all the same.
"It's ok, I'll go in." I wasn't at all convincing, but I needed to know I could do this.
"Honey. It's not that big a de..."
"JUST KEEP THEM AWAY FROM ME, OK???"
Walking ahead of me, Pineapple kinda waved his arms around, shooing the little afflictions away. I crept up behind him, taking step after fateful step towards the cashier window, until I stood next to him.
Keeping one eye on clucking hell and the other on the lady behind her cash register, I questioned the wisdom of this visit, despite my bravado. I didn't even have my favorite boots on, what if I need to punt these little motherfuckers over a fence if they get too close? I could feel my hands dampen.
Paying for our tickets, we started to enter through the turnstile when I spied little paper cups filled with corn giblets behind the cashier. Hit with a brainstorm, I grabbed Pineapple's arm and dragged him back. "We need to buy a couple of those," I announced.
Figuring the best way to prevent attack is to divert attention, I explained that if the chickens looked like they wanted to keep us company, we would simply throw them the corn and they'd follow in that direction.
Yes, it's always the most brilliant of ideas that turn the most tragic, isn't it?
We entered through the turnstile. Immediately, two of the largest roosters stalked towards us. Shouting expletives and practically climbing on Pineapple's back, I snatched one of the paper cups and hurled corn giblets at them.
It worked like a charm. As the nuggets scattered every which way, probably creating a hazardous walkway for any old ladies who happened to turn the corner on their walkers, the beasts turned as one towards the gift and moved away from us. I grabbed Pineapple's hand and yanked him away.
Half-running, half-walking, I felt we put some distance between us and them, when I heard the most dreadful of sounds: a lone cluck.
I (quite unwillingly, yet helplessly) turned around. Directly in front of me was a rogue chicken. Oh, but it wasn't any chicken, it was that breed of demon with fluffy feathers sprouting from the top of it's head and tufts covering it's talons, trying to lull me into thinking something so outlandish meant me no harm.
There the fowl thing squatted not four feet away, it's soulless head jerking in obscene movements as it shook wing feathers in a threatening manner. "Hello, Clarice," it spoke.
Bellowing at the top of my lungs, I leaped up a wrought-iron fence and nearly impaled myself on the spiked tops. Do you know what kind of strength it takes to clamber up a wrought-iron fence? The strength of SANITY SLIPPED, that's what kind.
Pineapple instantly took another cup of feed and scattered it away from us. This worked wonders for other chickens I didn't see coming towards us, but this thing? Stayed where it was.
"I'm going to walk away from you and hopefully it will follow me," Pineapple reasoned. Wordlessly I nodded, my face a rictus of horror. Manfully strolling around, scattering corn every which way, he looked like some macabre Pied Piper as hoardes of chickens followed him.
Perched precariously at the top of the fence with my legs clinging to the bars and my hands in a death grip on the spikes, I morbidly contemplated Death by Chicken as I felt my body wanting to slide to the ground. The soft skin of my hands were already starting to blister, but I felt it was an acceptable consequence to the alternative.
Which was currently still standing directly below me, straining it's ugly head towards my shoes, seeking corn nuggets and my soul.
It wasn't until it almost got my shoe lace that I shrieked for Pineapple. I shrieked and shrieked. And when I could finally tear my eyes away from the little feathered horror below me and search for him, I regretted shrieking for him instantly.
For there, surrounded by what looked like over 50 harbingers of hell, walked my husband. He was running out of corn to give them, but THE UNSPEAKABLE THINGS CONTINUED TO FOLLOW HIM ANYWAY. They were angry his supply of vegetable sacrifice with which to slake their unquenchable lusts had dwindled and would now feed upon his tongue and...other soft appendages.
Viciously kicking my legs out--which caused Satan's familiar to leap back with a startled squawk and splayed wings--I made good my escape and slid down the painful bars with the speed of an Olympic athlete (paying for it with sore body muscles later) and ran, ran, ran. Oh, how I ran. Flock of Seagulls never ran so far away like I ran that day.
I looked over my shoulder just in time to see Pineapple hurling the last of the feed behind him and run, too, as the hordes changed direction and swarmed all over the scatterd tidbits.
(Which reminds me--I hate seagulls, too. Creatures of the Damned, they are.)
Then, the panic attack struck.
For those of you whom have never experienced a panic attack, let me try to explain it in a nutshell--you experience the certainty that you're going to collapse and die.
Your heart starts pounding so hard, your shirt moves in time with it. Your eyesight blurs until you see things in a sort of tunnel. You hyperventilate. A lot. You break out in a massive sweat. It's inexpressibly awful.
So as I was running, a full-fledged panic attack hit me with the force of a locomotive and I had to stop running. Collapsing against a pen with goats, I gasped in huge mouthfuls of air all the while telling myself to keep going...they'll be done with their feed and come searching for more soon...they'll fly all over you...THEY'LL BEAT THEIR MUSTY WINGS AGAINST YOUR FACE AND HEAD FOR FUCK'S SAKE KEEP GOING.
But I couldn't move. Couldn't talk. My face was getting very, very pale from lack of breath (as Pineapple described for me later) and as things started to get very serious very fast, I felt Pineapple scoop me up and continue running, scattering baby goats.
I couldn't even tell you what animal enclosures we passed, but I remember him taking a short cut through the gift shop rather than brave the entrance where more winged nightmares were sure to have gathered. The cashier lady asked in a shocked voice if she should call an ambulance. Completely ignoring her, Pineapple ran past cougar toys and badger hats until he found an emergency exit and we were outside once again. Setting me down on my wobbly feet, I continued to hyperventilate.
Yanking my purse off my shoulders, he rummaged through purse crap and pulled out my inhaler. I grabbed at it as you would a lifeline and shot two blasts of mentholated air deep into my lungs. I felt my airways immediately open up and I took my first full breath of sweet, sweet air in, I would have to say, 5 worrisome minutes.
Soothingly rubbing my back and murmuring husband-y things, Pineapple walked me to the car. He never said a word about our lost afternoon or waste of money on zoo tickets. (I would've solar-plex'd him, anyway, but that just goes to show how awesome he really is.)
Pulling out of the zoo grounds, we merged into late afternoon traffic and quietly cruised home, never again mentioning that black day until this entry.
...
And these things? Look like they can kick down your door and bum-rush you in your innocent sleep.
I'm not talking about the succulent yardbirds you get at whatever famed BBQ place you have in your area--because that would just be a damn shame--but the ones BEFORE the chopping block. Live ones. Horrifyingly alive...yet undead...ones.
I don't know what it is about them, so perhaps someone here can tell me. I don't mind turkeys, I don't mind ducks or geese. (Well, you can have the geese as those unconscionable fuckers will chase you across a park and rip a chunk out of your tuckus if given half the chance, but I'm just sayin'.)
Is it their dirty feathers? Is it the way they shamble around in jerky motions as if they're confused which way is backwards and which way is forwards? Or is it the complete absence of sentience in their unnaturally spiralled pupils that tells you by all rights they should be dead, but somehow are not? They terrify me. They terrify me like nothing else in this world ever could.
There's a name for this particular fear:
skyblade: "Pollophobia?"
sexion8: "I'm quoting that."
skyblade: "No, I seriously think that's what it's called."
Be that as it may, Google disagrees and calls it Alektorophobia (which makes me think of...electricity, actually, but I'll go with it.)
Also, knowing there's a clinical name for this fear does absolutely nothing to dispel it, so guess what, Freud? YOU WERE DEAD WRONG. I mean, you were dead to begin with, but you're also wrong.
Strangely enough, I have never had a nightmare about chickens. And if you're at all familiar with my journal, you'll remember I have the ability to recall my dreamscapes with frightening clarity, so I should know. Maybe my phobia of chickens is so total, not even my psyche wants to enounter them, hence the absence of chicken-related dreams.
Of which I'm totally, TOTALLY grateful, by the way.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the bright idea of going to the zoo we have here in the city. It's a modest affair, only 3 acres, but I hadn't been since I was a wee little conservationist; I wanted to check it out. Pineapple agreed readily as he is also an animal lover, so we grabbed lunch and headed into North Town, looking forward to a relaxing afternoon.
Little did we know that not more than 40 minutes later our relaxing afternoon would turn quite hellish.
We pulled up and parked on the dirt shoulder across the street from the zoo. It's walls were cheerily painted with monkeys and lions reclining amongst foliage and fauna as a huge wooden sign boasted "OVER 200 SPECIES OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS!". We excitedly climbed out of the car and hand-in-hand, walked across the road.
I should've known things had taken a bad turn when we entered the ranch-style gates and Pineapple abruptly stopped and said, "I have a feeling we're not going inside."
Following his eyes, I saw what is perhaps the worst sight a phobiac can see--the object of their phobia. Or objects, as there were currently about 20 chickens clustered around the cashier window, walking freely.
Horrified, I could only stare at them. There they were, all colors, all sizes. A few roosters towered over the females, tails held aloft and mishappen heads darting hither and thither searching for soft eyeballs to pluck out.
Covering my mouth with my hand, I somehow held the bile down. My other hand tightened in Pineapple's to the point of cutting off his blood supply. I felt the sun dim and the planet shift on it's axis--and still I stared. Stared and stared as one would stare at a bottomless precipice before the leap. Swallowing tightly, I courageously announced that we should go in anyway.
Looking supremely doubtful, Pineapple asked, "You sure? Because we can leave right now and just go to the movies or something."
"No, no. We'll go in. It'll be ok," I replied in a falsetto. My voice gets very, very childlike when frightened out of my wits.
"I'm telling you, we don't have to go in," he insisted. Later on he wouldn't exactly TELL me he told me so? But the statement was there hovering between us all the same.
"It's ok, I'll go in." I wasn't at all convincing, but I needed to know I could do this.
"Honey. It's not that big a de..."
"JUST KEEP THEM AWAY FROM ME, OK???"
Walking ahead of me, Pineapple kinda waved his arms around, shooing the little afflictions away. I crept up behind him, taking step after fateful step towards the cashier window, until I stood next to him.
Keeping one eye on clucking hell and the other on the lady behind her cash register, I questioned the wisdom of this visit, despite my bravado. I didn't even have my favorite boots on, what if I need to punt these little motherfuckers over a fence if they get too close? I could feel my hands dampen.
Paying for our tickets, we started to enter through the turnstile when I spied little paper cups filled with corn giblets behind the cashier. Hit with a brainstorm, I grabbed Pineapple's arm and dragged him back. "We need to buy a couple of those," I announced.
Figuring the best way to prevent attack is to divert attention, I explained that if the chickens looked like they wanted to keep us company, we would simply throw them the corn and they'd follow in that direction.
Yes, it's always the most brilliant of ideas that turn the most tragic, isn't it?
We entered through the turnstile. Immediately, two of the largest roosters stalked towards us. Shouting expletives and practically climbing on Pineapple's back, I snatched one of the paper cups and hurled corn giblets at them.
It worked like a charm. As the nuggets scattered every which way, probably creating a hazardous walkway for any old ladies who happened to turn the corner on their walkers, the beasts turned as one towards the gift and moved away from us. I grabbed Pineapple's hand and yanked him away.
Half-running, half-walking, I felt we put some distance between us and them, when I heard the most dreadful of sounds: a lone cluck.
I (quite unwillingly, yet helplessly) turned around. Directly in front of me was a rogue chicken. Oh, but it wasn't any chicken, it was that breed of demon with fluffy feathers sprouting from the top of it's head and tufts covering it's talons, trying to lull me into thinking something so outlandish meant me no harm.
There the fowl thing squatted not four feet away, it's soulless head jerking in obscene movements as it shook wing feathers in a threatening manner. "Hello, Clarice," it spoke.
Bellowing at the top of my lungs, I leaped up a wrought-iron fence and nearly impaled myself on the spiked tops. Do you know what kind of strength it takes to clamber up a wrought-iron fence? The strength of SANITY SLIPPED, that's what kind.
Pineapple instantly took another cup of feed and scattered it away from us. This worked wonders for other chickens I didn't see coming towards us, but this thing? Stayed where it was.
"I'm going to walk away from you and hopefully it will follow me," Pineapple reasoned. Wordlessly I nodded, my face a rictus of horror. Manfully strolling around, scattering corn every which way, he looked like some macabre Pied Piper as hoardes of chickens followed him.
Perched precariously at the top of the fence with my legs clinging to the bars and my hands in a death grip on the spikes, I morbidly contemplated Death by Chicken as I felt my body wanting to slide to the ground. The soft skin of my hands were already starting to blister, but I felt it was an acceptable consequence to the alternative.
Which was currently still standing directly below me, straining it's ugly head towards my shoes, seeking corn nuggets and my soul.
It wasn't until it almost got my shoe lace that I shrieked for Pineapple. I shrieked and shrieked. And when I could finally tear my eyes away from the little feathered horror below me and search for him, I regretted shrieking for him instantly.
For there, surrounded by what looked like over 50 harbingers of hell, walked my husband. He was running out of corn to give them, but THE UNSPEAKABLE THINGS CONTINUED TO FOLLOW HIM ANYWAY. They were angry his supply of vegetable sacrifice with which to slake their unquenchable lusts had dwindled and would now feed upon his tongue and...other soft appendages.
Viciously kicking my legs out--which caused Satan's familiar to leap back with a startled squawk and splayed wings--I made good my escape and slid down the painful bars with the speed of an Olympic athlete (paying for it with sore body muscles later) and ran, ran, ran. Oh, how I ran. Flock of Seagulls never ran so far away like I ran that day.
I looked over my shoulder just in time to see Pineapple hurling the last of the feed behind him and run, too, as the hordes changed direction and swarmed all over the scatterd tidbits.
(Which reminds me--I hate seagulls, too. Creatures of the Damned, they are.)
Then, the panic attack struck.
For those of you whom have never experienced a panic attack, let me try to explain it in a nutshell--you experience the certainty that you're going to collapse and die.
Your heart starts pounding so hard, your shirt moves in time with it. Your eyesight blurs until you see things in a sort of tunnel. You hyperventilate. A lot. You break out in a massive sweat. It's inexpressibly awful.
So as I was running, a full-fledged panic attack hit me with the force of a locomotive and I had to stop running. Collapsing against a pen with goats, I gasped in huge mouthfuls of air all the while telling myself to keep going...they'll be done with their feed and come searching for more soon...they'll fly all over you...THEY'LL BEAT THEIR MUSTY WINGS AGAINST YOUR FACE AND HEAD FOR FUCK'S SAKE KEEP GOING.
But I couldn't move. Couldn't talk. My face was getting very, very pale from lack of breath (as Pineapple described for me later) and as things started to get very serious very fast, I felt Pineapple scoop me up and continue running, scattering baby goats.
I couldn't even tell you what animal enclosures we passed, but I remember him taking a short cut through the gift shop rather than brave the entrance where more winged nightmares were sure to have gathered. The cashier lady asked in a shocked voice if she should call an ambulance. Completely ignoring her, Pineapple ran past cougar toys and badger hats until he found an emergency exit and we were outside once again. Setting me down on my wobbly feet, I continued to hyperventilate.
Yanking my purse off my shoulders, he rummaged through purse crap and pulled out my inhaler. I grabbed at it as you would a lifeline and shot two blasts of mentholated air deep into my lungs. I felt my airways immediately open up and I took my first full breath of sweet, sweet air in, I would have to say, 5 worrisome minutes.
Soothingly rubbing my back and murmuring husband-y things, Pineapple walked me to the car. He never said a word about our lost afternoon or waste of money on zoo tickets. (I would've solar-plex'd him, anyway, but that just goes to show how awesome he really is.)
Pulling out of the zoo grounds, we merged into late afternoon traffic and quietly cruised home, never again mentioning that black day until this entry.
...
And these things? Look like they can kick down your door and bum-rush you in your innocent sleep.