Itsalotta Chicken

“Hey Mary!” I announced, on my arrival home from the grocery store. “I just got back from the ‘Price Gouger’ babe, an look what I found would’ya!”

“Oh no... you didn’t buy more chicken did you?” answered my wife, upset at the thought of yet another, chicken dinner.

“Don’t you worry my swan, this is gonna be different, you’ll see. I got a sweet n’ sour Chinese flavor packet from the ‘Jolly Green Ogre’ and I’m gonna make you an the kids somethin’ you’ll never forget.”

“I bet,” replied my ungrateful sounding spouse. “Just don’t make us sick like last night. How many weeks in a row do we have’ta eat chicken, anyway? Am I wrong, or are we going on six weeks?”

“Now Mary, don’t start on me again. I go to a lot of trouble to get you, me, Natalie and Ellie in shape and all you do is ridicule me. Any other wife would appreciate my effort, I’m sure.”

“I would if you didn’t keep buying that awful brand, ‘Itsalotta Chicken’. You know they load those poor birds with growth hormones and steroids, but you still go on buying it. I just don’t get it. Why do you, anyway?”

“Honey lamb, get real,” I told her. “Where else can I get a ten pound chicken for seven dollars! That’s only seventy cents a pound! It’s almost like living in the sixties again when we were mere babies.”

“Oh, do what you want,” I remember her saying. “You always seem to anyway. There doesn’t seem to be anything I can say that will stop you. But haven’t you ever wondered how in the world they get those chickens to weigh in at ten pounds? Did you think that was normal? Just do me one favor, would you?”

“What’s that pumpkin?”

“Shave before dinner, would’ya? I’m not into the unkempt look.”

“But I only just shaved this morning my dove. How could I be looking scraggy already?”

“Look in the mirror then if you don’t believe me,” she chided. And as I turned to get a look at my own familiar image in the large mirror on the dining room wall, I had to admit that she was right... but how, I thought? How had I already grown back the hair on my face, when I’d only just hours before shaved? But before I could respond, I’d noticed something else in the mirror that I couldn’t explain, and posed the following question to her... “Mary,” I began. “Have you grown? I swear, you look taller to me then you did only yesterday. Is that possible?”

“Don’t be silly,” she remarked. “That’s not possible. I’m a grown adult and have been for years. How could I ever continue growing at this stage in life? You’re joking me, right?”

“Oh well,” I said. “You’re probably right. It must be my imagination working overtime. Why don’t you watch some tube, while I start dinner? You’ll see,” I pointed out. “There’s nothing like a low fat, low carb meal like sweet n’ sour chicken to end a stressful day.” But even as I finished speaking, I couldn’t help but wonder about the strange things I’d seen in the mirror just moments before. Things I couldn’t readily explain away as the natural forces of nature would have allowed. It was only my hunger which prevailed over my contemplative mood then, and put my idle hands to the task of preparing that nights evening meal.

The talk at the dinner table that night was much as it had been for quite some time, beginning of course, with our two daughters chattering away, complaining as usual about the great number of chicken dinners we’d been consuming lately, when suddenly I heard a loud and unmistakable... “Dad!” which had come from my eldest daughter, as she simultaneously tossed her fork into her dish. “What is going on with you?” she asked abruptly. “I’m sick of chicken already. Can’t you just once make burgers or something? I’ll eat anything already, as long as it isn’t chicken again.”

“She’s right dad,” responded Ellie, who sat opposite me at the far end of our rectangular, dining room table. “Right about now, I’m think’in road kill is look’in pretty good ta me. What about you Nat?”

“I saw a smooshed squirrel on the road coming home,” replied Natalie. “Is it too much like eating cat?”

“There are those who might think it strange,” answered Ellie. “But I think you’re on the right track As long as it doesn’t involve an overgrown bird or anything with a beak, for that matter.”

“Now girls,” interrupted my wife. “You know road kill is not the answer. Besides,” she continued. “It’s wasteful not to eat what you’re father worked hard to prepare for us.”

“Mom,” said Natalie, still stuck in complain mode and for all the food we had in front of us, I just couldn’t understand why. “I’m growing a mustache from the steroids in this crap! ‘Itsalotta Chicken’ has gotta be one of the worst things you can put in your body, and we’ve been eating it every day now. Why do you go along with him?”

“There’s a good reason to it, Nat.”

“That’s right my swan,” I said. “You go girl. Tell her.”

“As far as meat goes... it’s very low in fat,” she continued saying. “And besides that, it’s low calorie too. Just eat the white meat.”

“Exactly,” I interjected. “That’s exactly why I do what I do, and when we’re through losing body fat, we can easily maintain our desired weight by continuing to eat the way we’ve learned.”

“I’m moving to Australia,” muttered Ellie.

“I’m already packed,” said Natalie in agreement. But after the smoke had cleared and we’d finished eating, things settled down to the usual slow pace of late evening and it wasn’t long before Mary was saying goodnight to all of us from her side of our bed, focusing on getting a good nights sleep as she created her very own, patented, head sandwich. This arrangement utilized her head as the main ingredient, nestled between two soft pillows which she used to block out unwanted sound from the living room, and any pesky light that may have otherwise found its way to her eyes.

“Well girls,” I said to my two daughters, as Mary dozed off. “I think I’ll turn in too. It’s been a long day.”

“You know it,” said Natalie, in a more complacent mood.

“But I must admit that I owe my high energy level to the wholesome food we’ve been eating and to ‘Itsalotta Chicken’ for helping me get my weight where it should be.”

“You’re not gonna waste time writing them an over zealous, ass-kissing letter are you? Why are you such a brown nose?”

“Don’t be a brat Natalie,” I replied, on my way to join my wife in the land of nod. “That’s not a bad idea you just had though. There might be some free chicken in it, who knows?”

“Anything but that dad,” pleaded Ellie. “We’re just this close,” she continued saying, as she illustrated her point by pressing together the forefinger and thumb of her dainty right hand... “to killing you in your sleep.”

“Yeah dad,” added Natalie. “‘Cause that’s the only way we’re gonna get you ta stop making chicken for dinner. Must we resort to extreme measures?”

“Nonsense,” I maintained. “Someday you’ll see the light girls, I just know it. And when you do, you’ll be thanking me. In the meantime though, I’m gonna get me some shut-eye. You have a good one,” I added, and climbed into my side of the bed. Never realizing - concerning the events which were soon to follow - how wrong I’d been all along and how, by method of my own madness, I had navigated myself and my family to a place where no man had been before, that is, not without his own knowledge and awareness...

The next morning, I awoke to what sounded like a small bomb going off on the opposite end of our house, and sprang out of bed when I heard Natalie cry out, “help! Someone help me!” But as I got to my feet and ran toward my open, bedroom door to find out what the trouble was, I struck my head on what strangely enough, had to have been the wall over the door, and ended up flat on my back, very nearly knocking myself out cold. When I finally got up, I turned around to find that my body had made a deep impression in the floor like a crater from a meteor, but to make matters worse, the impression I’d left was nearly as big as our king size bed.
Scratching my head in wonder, It wasn’t long before I heard Natalie yelling “help me!” again, but this time, I was careful to duck under the head of the door and proceeded to run down the hallway which led to her room, but all the while and unbeknownst to me, either the hallway had grown smaller or I had somehow grown bigger... “I’m stuck Nat!” I yelled in return. “I’m stuck in the hallway between walls. I can’t get my damn shoulders loose. What’s happened to me Nat? I must be seven feet tall! This has gotta be a bad dream right? When do I wake up?”

“It’s not a dream dad,” I heard her say, as her voice seemed to echo off walls in different parts of the house. “You did this to us... you and your ‘Itsalotta Chicken’! Now do you believe me? Now that it’s... it’s too late?!” But even as she spoke, I could feel something very powerful strike me from behind with the force of some huge raging beast. Needless to say, the impact of the force knocked my shoulders loose and threw me to the floor in front of Natalie’s room. Feeling as if I’d been mauled by a Grizzly bear, I looked up to find a huge, giant of a creature looming over me which I had to admit, reminded me of my lovely, petite wife but in stature, roughly four times her size. “Who are you?” I asked the creature. “And what have you done to my wife?”

“I am your wife, jerk! Look at me now... are you satisfied? I should be wrestling on t.v..
Thanks to you, I’m bigger than Hulk Hogan. It was that damn chicken, wasn’t it. You wouldn’t stop would you. I begged you, we all begged you, but no... you had to put that crap on the table again and again, no matter what anyone said. We warned you, now look at what you’ve done,” she said, as she grabbed me by what was left of the ragged night shirt I’d gone to bed in - now in tatters - as it had ripped apart in the time it’d taken an out of control pituitary gland to work its evil. “What are you doing my dove?” I asked innocently, as my amazon like wife picked me up like a baby and threw me to my huge feet.

“I don’t know why, but I’m helping you. Now what’s with Natalie? Is she suffering from giantism too, or did it skip a generation?”she asked, most facetiously.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I never made it that far. I got stuck in our tiny hallway before I could get there.”

“It’s three feet wide, putz. That’s a normal dimension, but we’re not normal anymore, thanks to you. C’mon,” she continued, as she strode the last few steps to Natalie’s room. “Help me with your daughter.” But when we opened the door, we were astonished to find nothing but a huge hole where the bed had been - which now laid flat on the basement floor - and another great beast who resembled my daughter sitting atop the bed, weeping into her own, huge hands. “I hit my head in the doorway,” she said, as she wiped the tears from her face. “Then I saw myself in the bathroom mirror! I couldn’t believe my eyes, and I threw myself into bed. The next thing I knew... I was in the basement. Dad,” she exclaimed, shaking her overgrown fist in my direction, exchanging grief for anger. “This is your fault. Look at me! I won’t fit in my clothes, or my car, or anything. I’m... I’m a beast,” she yelled up at me, as I peered down into the gaping sinkhole created by my daughters unwelcome, gargantuan weight. “How do I get out of here?” she questioned, still dazed by the fall. “Hold on,” I replied, as I kneeled down to stretch out my newly developed, long arm. “Take my hand,” I said. And with all of the ease in which my wife had picked me up in the hallway, I had pulled Natalie to the first floor in a flash and set her gently to her huge, hairy feet.
It wasn’t long before all the noise we caused stirred Ellie from her beauty rest, and after an “Ouch!” that people must’ve heard for ten miles in any direction, she walked from her room to the hall, rubbing her head and staring blankly at the sight of us. “I hit my head,” she muttered. “But, how’s that possible,” she said out loud, in wonder. “The wall is... hey,” she exclaimed, as the sight of us finally registered in her dazed mind. “You’re huge! You’re all giants. What did you do with my family? Where’d you put them?”

“We are your family,” returned Natalie. “This is dad’s fault. He turned us into freaks with that damn ‘Itsalotta Chicken’. Now whadda we do?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “But... what was that? Did you hear that noise?” I asked. “It’s coming from the living room.”

“Oh my God!” exclaimed Natalie, as all of her enormous, muscular body began to tremble in fear. “Shit! It sounds like a lion or something,” she said. “Do you think one of the zoo animals escaped? Was there anything on the news?”

“I didn’t hear anything on t.v.,” replied Mary, as her own equally enormous body gave her fear away also. “But who knows, it might’ve just happened and it hasn’t made the news yet. Uh, oh,” she continued saying, as whatever it was that was now trapped in our house was obviously large - as we could tell by its roar - and obviously unhappy in its captive state.

“What now?” asked Ellie. “Whadda we do? We’re as trapped as he is.”

“Here,” I said in a low voice, doing my best not to startle whatever it was that was ‘trapped’, as Ellie put it. And turning into the laundry room - halfway down the hallway - I remembered the snow shovel I’d kept stored against the wall and as I grasped it in my hand - which was now easily twice the size it had been - I grew more confident. ‘What the hell. I’m a damn beast myself.’ I thought. ‘What’ve I got to fear? I bet I must weigh four hundred pounds, give or take a few.’ But as the floor joists beneath my feet strained under the pressure of my great, hulking body, whatever had paid us a visit began to roar again, and the confidence I’d built seemed to seep from me as the blood from an open wound - which was just the type of thing that began to weigh heavily on my panicky mind. “I’ll g-go first,” I stuttered. “You s-s-stay here, okay?”

“Okay,” replied Natalie.

“Wait!” said Mary. “What if...”

“I’ll be okay,” I answered, with all the nerve I could gather and ever so cautiously, approached the living room to face my fears.

Peering around the edge of wall which opened out into the room, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The animal I found was just as we had imagined, but how it had made its way into our home was anybodies guess. Annoyed with me, this zoo keepers runaway let out another loud roar and took a swipe with an enormous front paw through the empty air before him, as if to warn me not to come any closer. It was all I could do to collect my wits enough just to pick up a broken, studded collar that lay on the floor at my feet and make my way back down the hall to my shaken, small family. “Here,” I said, revealing the collar to Natalie. “I found t-t-this on the f-f-floor. It’s a b-b-big c-c-cat alright. Just l-like we thought.”

“Well, what in the world?” asked Mary. “How do you suppose it got in?”

“I don’t know,” replied Natalie, staring down at the small collar which was made to appear even smaller as she held it in her huge hand. “But I do know one thing. This was Ben’s collar. What if that thing ate Ben?”

“You mean Ben, our house cat?” I answered. “Oh God, poor Ben. I hope it didn’t hurt.”

“Dad,” interjected Ellie. “What color was the thing in the living room?”

“I don’t know... orange, I guess. Why?”

“Did you give Ben any chicken?” she continued.

“Uh... yeah, I guess. Just a little, at lunch time. I always thought he liked it, an I always had leftovers. Hey, you don’t think...”

“That’s exactly what I think dad. Proportionately, Ben grew the same way we did. That’s Ben out there!” And as Ellie finished speaking, Natalie ran out into the living room to meet her dear, old friend, cute little Ben - who was now the size of a large mountain lion. “Ben!” she yelled, and unable to contain herself, she walked toward the sleek, musclebound killer with arms outstretched and a tear in her great, big eye. “Oh Ben, what did he do to you?” she asked of the creature, as if she expected him to answer. But sure enough, her perception of what had been her loving pet began to pay off, as the beast stood up on all fours, walked calmly to her and began to rub his body against her legs - as he’d done in affection so many times in the past - the only difference now was of course, his immense size and strength. “What now dad?” questioned Natalie, in a more contemplative mood. “You didn’t just wreck us did you... you had to wreck him too. Now look at him. We can’t let him outside, that’s for sure. He’ll scare the neighbors and all the other pets. The cops will be here knocking on our door if anyone gets a look at him. Now what?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I just don’t know what to do. Maybe the hormones or whatever will wear off, who knows? Right now, all I know is one thing... I’m starved and there’s nothing in the house.”

“Great, now what?” rebuked my wife. “Tell me you don’t have shopping on your mind. You know I can’t trust you with the shopping. I should’ve known better then to let you loose in the store. I’ll do the food shopping from now on. Fork over the debit card mister, an make it snappy.”

“C’mon Mary. Have a heart. Everyone makes mistakes. I promise, I won’t ever buy ‘Itsalotta Chicken’ ever again. I swear.”

“Really?” asked Ellie.

“Can we really trust you?” asked Nat.

“You know it,” I replied, only too willing to go along with the new rule, since I never dreamed my good intentions could go awry the way they had.

“Okay then Reid. I’ll give you one more chance to make good. Who knows, maybe in time the results of your so called, ‘low fat diet’ will wear off and we’ll shrink back to normal. In the meantime, don’t dare buy any more cheap chicken.”

“Don’t you worry honey lamb,” I said, with all the meaning I could possibly muster. “You can count on me.” And with that, I grabbed my car keys in my huge, burly fist and headed for the store.

Later that evening, as the four of us sat around the dinner table - floor joists bending and creaking beneath the combined load of our weight as they never had before - I decided to pop the question, as I usually had in the past, and asked them all what they thought of my cooking. “Not bad dad,” replied Natalie.

“Thank God it isn’t chicken,” muttered Ellie, as she dropped another forkful past her huge, gaping jaws.

“You can say that again,” agreed Mary. “And you still got to do your Chinese Szechwan stir-fry didn’tcha?”

“Yep,” I said in reply.

“It’s beef, isn’t it?” asked Ellie, inquisitive as always.

“Sure is,” I answered, biting off another forkful. “Boy that’s good stuff.”

“Musta been expensive, huh dad?” she said, pursuing the question a bit further.

“Not really,” I said proudly. “I’m a smart shopper. I know what I’m doing now, an I know where ta find the deals.”

“The deals?” asked Mary, as she set her fork back into her dinner plate and stared in my direction. “What deals? Tell me Reid, where did you get this?”

“Why, the ‘Price Gouger’ dear, where I always go.”

“And what brand is it?”

“Why... ‘Itsalotta’ of course. It happens to be ‘Itsalotta Beef’. That’s how I got such a great deal on it, why?”

“Oh nooo,” said the three of them nearly simultaneously, and as they did, each one fell backwards in their chair, creating huge, individual depressions in the floor beneath them with well pronounced ‘thuds’ as they landed. But I, much hungrier then usual - probably due I thought to my increased size and bulk - loaded up my plate again and wondered what it was I could’ve said that may have caused such reaction. “Oh well,” I said out loud. “Waste not, want not as they say, right Ben?” And as I looked in Ben’s direction, he walked towards me and sat down on the floor next to me. Sitting straight up, I couldn’t help but notice that his head now loomed far above the table even as he sat and was at a much more convenient, easier to reach height then before. So, taking advantage of this, I began dropping large chunks of beef into his open, waiting jaws as I calmly spoke. “Maybe this’ll work out after all,” I said to him, as I watched him barely chew what dropped behind his two inch, front fangs. “After all, I don’t even have’ta bend at the waist to feed you now.”