It's all coming back to me now....

We went to the zoo, for the first time this year, with some of our friends yesterday and had a nice time (even though the toddlers were ever so slightly grumpy). We got a good workout and entertained the kids for a few hours--woo hoo!

I love going to the zoo but it always stirs up a bit of my Alektorophobia. That's right. I'm scared of these:

And believe me, there are plenty of them at the zoo--running around all free-like. I get the chills just thinking about it. My fear of chickens started at the tender age of 4 when my parents procured a large Rooster. This stinkin' rooster roamed freely all over the large yard and used to chase my brothers and I while we tried to play on our swingset, or were helping with laundry, or were playing, or breathing--didn't take much to set him off! He was huge and horrible with a bite-y beak and those scratch-y toes--what a nightmare! I can remember my Mother laughing at us as we desperately tried to get away....*chills*

We moved to our farm when I was 5 and for some reason the rooster didn't come with us. My father did, however, start raising hens. It was my unlucky job to go into the hen house and collect the eggs in the morning. Now, collecting eggs doesn't sound that bad but sometimes the chickens don't want to give them up! Sometimes they are still sitting right on them and you have to reach under their huge white bodies, feel between their scratchy toes and avoid their bite-y beaks just to grab the eggs--not to mention all of their shifty eye movements and the clucking--Oh! the clucking! When chickens get angry they cluck different too--more like a growl then a cluck. I'm terrified just thinkin' about it! Well, not terrified, but deeply disturbed!

Almost as disturbed as I was when I found this picture on the internet when looking for a chicken picture:

This stirs up a whole new set of emotions that I just don't have the strength to delve into at this time.

Anyways, I would walk into the chicken coop in the mornings to get the eggs and every time I opened the door the nine million chickens inside would get scared and all fly right toward my face. It was like a tornado of beaks, feet and feathers. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Every. Single. Morning.

I think I finally convinced my parents to let me do some other chore but I've never quite recovered from the short time I actually did this. I haven't recovered from the time we went to our neighbor's house and his huge 3 foot tall turkey attacked my feet, or the time my goose pooped on me at show and tell, or the time I narrowly missed being attacked by a bird at an aviary, or the time the seagulls swarmed me and ate my fried dough at the shore or the time we slaughtered the chickens and their headless corpses were bouncing all over the farm for HOURS (yes, they can move for HOURS AND HOURS without a head)....

I probably never will recover and now my fear of chickens has translated to a mistrust of birds of all kinds. Aren't you so glad to know?

p.s. I smushed my bumper yesterday or I should say, re-smushed. My husband did the job nicely just a few months ago and now I've gone and re-smushed the smush. Bleh.