KimBday_s17

I think I might just tell this story.  I have friends who insist.  But it simply is a story that in spite of its tragedy has a way of bringing the kind of chuckles that makes one spit out their coffee!  I figure...why not chuckle?  Life is full of crazy!  There are stresses and demands at every turn.  Yes, I think I'll just tell this silly little story! 

When I was but a young "toe-head" I acquired 2 chickens at Easter one year.  I don't remember how they came to me, because I am quite sure my mother would never have brought them home!  (laughing out loud!)  I do remember the local 5 and 10 store down the street selling colorful baby chickens each year in March or April.   There they would be in the front window - adorable rainbow-colored fluff balls hopping about and peeping in time!  All I could think about was holding one and "making it my very own"!  

At any rate, after certain pleading and begging, I somehow ended up with two - a pink one and a green one.  Now, we lived on the main street of small-town Potosi where there was quite a bit of traffic throughout most days.  Our little rock duplex was a shotgun style home, with dad's insurance business office in the front room.  As one walked through the office they would then pass into mom and dad's bedroom and then enter a dining/living room/kitchen area.  Just past this tri-living area was a large floor furnace that covered the hallway - with a small bathroom to its right and my sister and I's bedroom beyond the furnace at the back of the house.  During the later spring months the furnace would be covered by a rug as the heat was turned off in the house.  I vividly remember the rug - it was bright pink! 

Did I mention that our house was small?  I am still trying to remember what we did with those chickens when I wasn't holding them!  And more-so, I am trying to imagine what my mother was thinking by letting me bring them inside and actually keep them!!  Since my grandparents raised chickens, I figure the destiny of my pet's adult days was to be in the chicken house at their farm!

One of the chickens did in fact make it to grandma and grandpa's and if I remember right, stayed there until it's untimely death after getting in the cabbage patch and eating some bug killer that grandpa had dusted onto the plants in early summer.  My other chicken had yet another story that continues to be told today in our family.

For some reason, I had a hard time keeping that bird contained, because at one point it ran out the front door, right into the busy street!  From the way my dad tells the story, there were cars honking and skidding around while he ran down High Street trying to round up that chicken!  Somehow between my dad and the good people of Potosi, they managed to rescue it and save it from the dumpling pot!  

Unfortunately, that poor little feathered friend would not quite make it to adult hood.  I loved my chicken, but one day I made a terrible mistake while carrying it through the house.  I started running towards my room with the little guy cradled in my arms.  It seems that so admired bright pink rug was pushed back slightly becoming the very thing I would trip on, bringing an unpredicted end to my chicken.  Oh the heartache!!!  I was crying because my chicken was gone, and my mother was crying because she had to clean it out of the grates of the floor furnace!!!  What a mess of mayhem it was!  

Now, the sadness did fade after awhile, and in fact it became a rather laughable story as I got older!  In fact I have a friend who put yet another spin on it....she says we created the original chicken strips!  :)