Birthday massacre

Tomorrow is my roommates birthday. I do not think she is one of the three people (if that many) that reads this blog so I have no qualms about posting this. I am super excited but super nervous about tomorrow. Here is the reason why. My roommate loves, loves, loves Nutella. You know the hazelnut spread? She could seriously eat it by the jar. So I plan on getting up super early to make her a cake that will have marshmallow cream filling and Nutella icing. In my mind it works out grrrreat ( like Tony the tiger). But honestly it could be disastrous. I am a pretty decent cook or so I have been told and think I can pull it off but, we'll see. I will try to take a picture and post it here. In honor of her birthday, the story today will have a theme that loosely will honor her. My roommate is an animal science major so today's story has to do with chickens.

Let us begin.

I am a murderer. Well not a direct murderer. I think the term I am looking for is accessory to murder. I was aiding and abetting those that murdered. It all started when my aunt and uncle decided to go out of town. They live across the street from me and whenever they went out of town, my brother or I would always take care of things for them. They had 2 dogs and a cat. They also had about five or six chickens at that time. Before they departed, I stopped by and took note of all the instructions they had for me, I was to follow them exactly so that everything would go smoothly. I was to feed the chickens twice a day and let the dogs out to run a few times during the day as well. The cat and the dogs were to be fed only once a day. However, when I fed the chickens I was to let them out and run, but sure the dogs were up. Okay simple enough instructions. I got this.

Now if you know me well, you know that I am NOT a fan of birds. I am terrified of them and they freak me out. But, this is just a weekend and my brother assured me that he would help me. The first day went off without a glitch. It wasn't until the second day that something went terribly wrong. Of cours this kind of incident always happens at the last second, right before the owners are about to pull in the driveway.

It was a Sunday evening. My brother had already informed me that he had taken care of the chickens except their water. He said that I didn't need to let them out, just check their water and fill it up. The dogs and cat had already been fed but their water just needed to be checked again too. "No problem!" was my response. Only God knew the crazy events that were about to occur. I pulled up to my aunt's house and got out of my bug. I checked and refilled the dogs and cats water first just to get the easy tasks over with. I decided I would let the dogs run around the yard a few times since I wasn't letting the chickens out. BIG MISTAKE! Looking back, I know that this decision is where I went wrong. I headed out to the chicken house that my uncle had built. Upon arriving there I shut the little gate behind me and headed towards the chicken coupe. ( the gate is more for looks it does not have any chicken wire on it. It just adds aesthetics to the barn). As I pulled the roof off of the litte chicken house, I did not know that one of the chickens had gone rogue, and wanted out! As soon as the tiniest hole appeared between the roof and the house, she was " outta there". Of course with my fear of birds I screamed and ducked out of her way. After crumpling to the ground in an order to protect myself from this demented poultry, I realized the dogs were out!

Luckily they were on the outside of this aesthetic fence and could not get their fat butts through. However, the chicken thought that I was the worst thing ever and would not come back towards the coupe. The next series of events happened in a massive panic of fear and frustration. I frantically called my brother as I was trying to gently coax the chicken back over, yet still trying to protect myself from the evil demon, but still deciding whether I should open the gate and try to take the dogs away from this situation. Overall I was stuck in a pretty tight spot and had no clue what to do. Chasing this chicken would cause chaos of the dogs and the chicken. Opening the gate would definitely in sue the death of this bird. And I could not just let it wander, lest it wander under the fence. Calling my brother left me with nothing because he did not pick up. He was my only life line. My only safety net. And he was not answering. What I had to do became obvious. I was going to have to pick up the chicken!

I crept over slowly on all fours saying, " here chicky, chicky, chicky". Of course I looked stupid and there was no budge from the demon. But I finally did get close enough to catch her. I grabbed her fast, shrieking and cringing as I did. She wasn't too happy about it either but I knew this was a life and death situation. I ran back to the coupe with her in my hands, hopeful that I had saved the day.

I had not. As approached the coupe with the squawking and squirming bird. Not to mention myself shrieking hysterically. The other chickens decided that this loud noise coming at them was dangerous and they needed to flee! Remember that tiny hole I opened earlier to change the water. In all the commotion I forgot to close it. The rest of the chickens came jumping out towards me and their rogue master. I flipped out trying to hit them back into the house with the bird I had. I guess saving chickens is not like baseball.

I threw the bird I had in the coupe and shut the roof this time. But with all the shrieks from the birds and the flapping of their wings and junk the dogs were going crazy thinking dinner was on the way. Two of the birds had jumped and fluttered to the top of the fence, just out of the dog's reach and the others were hiding in the bushes right at the base if the fence. All it took was one move, one move for all these chickens to be on the other side of the fence, easily reached by the rabid dogs. That move happened. I don't know what caused this, if it was just because the chicken was still shaken from the baseball incident. But one chicken sitting in the fence tried to fly away. It didn't get very far and as soon as it got close enough to the ground, the dog had it in it's mouth. A chicken suicide. The rest of the chickens heard all of the screaming from the suicide and took off running thinking that this "thing" was coming for them too. STUPID! If they had stayed in the fence then they would still be laying eggs today. The other dog grabbed one and since the first dog was done with his kill, he had a free mouth for a second one. The last one was fought over by both dogs. You may be asking yourself what was Chelsea doing during all of this? Good question. I was screaming my head off and crying and trying to plead with the dogs to let the chickens live. It's not their fault their stupid. The only chicken I saved that day was the one I used as a baseball bat.

So now what's next? I'm freaking out. My aunt and uncle will be back in an hour and here I am with chicken blood all over my hands. So I did what any freaking out, crying, shrieking, teenage girl would do. I called Tractor Supply. If you are laughing, you should be because the fact that I even had the in my phone was ridiculous. I was going to buy my aunt new chickens before she got back in an hour and pray she didn't notice. I call and they only had ducks. My question to the man on the phone who could tell I was distressed was do you think I can pass the ducks off as chickens? He chuckled and said, " no ma'am. They're definitely ducks". I was out of options. I had to call and tell my aunt I killed all her chickens but one. I called her, no answer. I can not leave this foul news in a voicemail. I left a message saying to call me ASAP with a lot of sobbing. She called me about forty five minutes later, worried something had happened to my parents.

Ring, ring, ring

Me: ( in a very tired raspy voice). Hello

Aunt: OMG! Chelsea I got your voicemail is everything okay?! Did something happen to your parents, is your brother alright? What about your sister? Are you okay?!!

Me: No nothing happened to anyone. But something did happen.

Aunt: What is it?

Me: I uh....killed your chickens.

Aunt: oh Chelsea, don't worry about that. We've had more trouble with those darn chickens. You know we started off with 16? Goes to show you we're not good with them either. I love you and we'll be home soon.

I'm thankful this was my family and not just a neighbor.

Four toes and seven years ago....

I want to say something catchy...something inspirational...something that will stay with people forever...or at least for a little while. My mind is blank. As always. So I guess you'll just have to settle for the crazy things that occur in my life. The other day I was informed by my roommate that I apparently am a "great" storyteller. I am not sure how valid this statement is because I have never been on the other side of myself to hear my stories. However, there was once a young lad in high school that told me my family should write a book about the crazy things that happen to us. These moments do not just happen to me...they happen to the whole Patterson clan. Specifically my dad. (maybe I inherited it). Okay, okay. I am headed towards the stories.

So this is the story that I told the other day. Everything I am about to type is in fact real and did happen. Prepare yourself.

As most people know, my father is a contractor. Meaning he builds houses and the like. He does a lot of the work himself with just a few guys that help him (help is a light word. These guys work their bums off). One day dad was working on the job site trying to finish pouring and smoothing the concrete for the foundation. His goal was to be able to start building the next day. He has this little machine that rotates round and round on top of the wet concrete. The finish product is smooth concrete. On this particular day, however, there was one spot that just would not lay down. The spot was a bubble that after many times of trying to smooth it out, dad gave up. He decided that something was causing this bubble in his concrete and he was going to dig it up and find out what it was. Now knowing my father, his emotional and psychological thoughts at this point were most likely anger. He was angry he was going to be behind on the project, angry he had to dig up his smooth concrete he had just spent hours smoothing over, and angry he was going to have to fix this stupid spot. But dad had no idea how his emotions were about to change. He began digging and after a couple of minutes pulled out....

It is here where I would pause for a dramatic commercial break if I were a tv show. Or maybe just quit telling the story....it's not like you're interested or anything. I could just go on with my life and be perfectly content and you would pretend that you didn't care about what was in the concrete. Just filed away in the back of your mind never to brought up again. But secretly it would be eating at you...tearing up you amygdala and your prefrontal cortex. Pretty gruesome right? But not as gruesome as what was found.

.....A HUMAN TOE! If you are wondering whether you read that correctly because you may have forgotten what we are talking about. Yes, dad pulled a human toe out his concrete. ....um GROSS! Let's assess my dad's psychological and emotional well being at this moment. There's a little bit of humor ( wondering if this is a joke), a lot of confusion, and a lot of questions now. My question to the readers out there now is what would you have done at this point in this situation? Laughed and gone on about your day? Not known how to respond? Well in the Patterson family, we call people. We get answers. So this next section is the phone conversation to the concrete company to find out where the toe came from.

Ring, ring, ring

Secretary: Hello, this is ****** ******* what can I do for you?

Dad: My name is Mark Patterson and I had some concrete delivered this morning and well there was something very strange found in it?

S: Well Mr. Patterson can you describe what you found?

D: The best way to describe it to you ma'am is ...well... It looks like a toe.

S: A TOE! Sir are you sure? Is this a joke?

D: No ma'am this is no joke ( a small chuckle). Has anyone up there at the plant lost a toe?

S: (lot of laughter in the background is heard now) Mr. Patterson I am not sure if anyone has or hasn't do you mind if I call you back I need to call down to the manager and ask him.

D: No that is fine. You have my number.

Click

A few minutes later.

Ring, ring, ring.

D: Hello?

S: Hello Mr. Patterson I'm calling about your concrete and the uh toe you found.

D: ( chuckles) yes what did you find out?

S: Well sir, one of our mixers had his thumb smashed off in the machine the other day and they couldn't find his thumb. Does it look like it could be a thumb Mr. Patterson?

D: well it would be a very fat thumb, but yea I guess it could be a thumb. Does he want it back?

S: (laughing so hard she can barely be understood)... No sir thats quite all right. You can keep it for a souvenir.

D: ( now laughing too) thanks I appreciate that. Have a good day.

Even the bumps in life can have humor underneath them.