The Tale of the Frozen Flying Chicken, or —

 

 

how not to break a toe!   Okay, I have not lost my mind!  No I haven’t!  This is a true story and I have shared it with  a few people over the years.  Looking at this in a humorous way definitely helped at the time with the sudden pain of  a broken toe. Trying to find humor in things really does make life better. Hope this makes you laugh today! 

Many years ago, I lived in an old house with my husband and children.  This was not your big fancy Victorian houses or a Painted Lady, but just an average home built for employees of a nearby brickyard but since converted into a two family home with one apartment downstairs and one upstairs.  At the time of this story I lived in the upstairs apartment and to get to the basement we had to go outdoors and down the stairs.  In that basement was our laundry area and hubby’s workshop area and we had an old upright freezer.  Key word for this house and this freezer?  OLD!  Old equals unlevel cement floor on which sat an unlevel freezer!

Now add to this the fact that I have the habit of running around barefoot in my house. 

One bright sunny day I decided to go down to get something out of that crooked freezer on the crooked cement floor.  I was in a hurry so I ran down to the basement without my shoes on.  That did not help matters at all.  You’ve heard about shoot first and ask questions later?  Well it was kind of like that analogy.  I quickly pulled open the freezer door without thinking of consequences first. 

On the top shelf of the freezer I had a few frozen whole chickens sitting very nicely on the flat shelf apparently minding their own business.   Or so I thought!    WRONG!!!  One of those chickens got a bit over-excited at the sudden burst of daylight and decided his chance to escape his frozen prison had come and he quickly decided to take advantage of that.

He decided to fly  to freedom!   And while he was at it, inflict damage on that creature (me) who had imprisoned him!  You got it!  He dove towards my bare feet on the concrete floor, aiming perfectly at my second toe!  Bull’s Eye!   He landed right on one of the joints of that toe! 

Oh my goodness!   I saw stars!  The toe immediately swelled up into this monstrous purple appendage, throbbing with pain!  Yep!  It was broken all right!  Who knew chickens were so evil???    I got even with the mean little critter, though.  He became a pot of chicken soup for the next day’s supper!  My toe?  Well for over a week at least it rested itself taped to the big toe for lovely support and was surrounded by a soft slipper since a shoe was not to decorate that foot for a while. 

The chicken lives on in infamy whenever we have cold, damp weather because he left behind the lovely gift of arthritis in that toe. Ouch! 

Moral of the story?  Don’t trust a frozen chicken in a crooked freezer on an unlevel cement floor while walking barefoot!   LOL  They will get you every time!