Operation Chicken Rescue… Happy Halloween!

Today, it’s a bit chilly here in the Tennessee Valley. I had an early morning doctor’s appointment, so I decided I’d best try and find a slightly heavier jacket than normal – if I could find one that fit me. One of the pleasant side effects of having gone on the Wahls Protocol back in late March/early April is that I have been losing a good bit of weight. I’ve lost a little over 45 pounds in total, and hope to keep losing.

I usually just wear lightweight, fleece, hooded, zip-up jackets (I have 3 or 4 in various colours), but I wanted something a tiny bit more “substantial” this morning. I COULD have absolutely made one of the fleece jackets work, but… I knew I would be waiting for a few minutes outside for my friend, Ford, to pick me up. Therefore, I went on a quest for something more appropriate. I located my old Student Ambassador jacket from my uni days (circa 2016/2017) and was pleased to find that I was able to get into it! It’s still a bit snug around the hips, but it works okay-ish enough to wear to a doctor’s appointment. Donning the cosy little coat, I was out the door.

I had a lovely morning, oddly enough. Usually, a doctor’s appointment wouldn’t make for an exciting day. Today, however, Ford was heading to our local television station to be interviewed about a production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, that he is acting in/promoting. Since he was pressed for time after my appointment – he needed to go straight there. I was officially along for the ride!

It’s Halloween, so he was wearing a cute costume (Luigi, from Mario Bros).

I wasn’t wearing a costume. I decided my “costume” would just be my Student Ambassador jacket. I mean, it *was* an original, after all… how many other University of Greenwich (London, UK) former Student Ambassadors would there BE in Chattanooga, TN at a television station on a Halloween morning?

So we did the thing… his interview was awesome, and I even got to see my former boss (and friend) Becky (I used to work for Fox/CW as a contractor several years ago doing some video editing stuff – it was a great job, and she was a fantastic boss!) I sat in the Green Room and watched the interview from there, and then we headed back to my place so Ford could drop me off and get himself to work.

After going through my usual morning routines (feeding the birdies, making myself a cuppa, and a bowl of berries, muesli, and filmjölk), I went into my office. Every day, it’s the same. I try my best to find ways to make a dollar or two (usually unsuccessfully). It’s the end of the month. I’m always hurting at the end of the month, especially. So I began to check on my websites, and tried to get into some sort of creative mood to maybe come up with some cute tee shirt or notebook designs… but… my mind was all over the place. I couldn’t focus. I had been up and down all night with panic attack stuff, as well as depression… and my mind was quickly spiralling to a dark place again. I needed to distract myself. Somehow.

I began thinking about Halloween. I mean, I am here all alone with the birdies… and I don’t get trick or treaters here because I live out in the middle of nowhere. But… I thought it might cheer me up to put on a simple little costume for the day. I don’t really have many around here, but I have several cute onesies. Since the weather has turned off cooler, I thought that might be a fun, comfy thing to do – put on a onesie! Then I took it a step further.

I had a chicken onesie/costume that I used to wear when I was in London at uni. I used to put it on for no real reason other than to make people smile. I would put it on and walk all over the part of Southeast London where I lived (Greenwich, Charlton, Blackheath, etc…), clucking and staying in character completely. Mind you, the head is covered, so unless you were one of my friends “in the know” – no one knew who I was. I was just the crazy American Chicken in London, right? Since my old uni jacket had sort of fit me this morning, I decided to try on my chicken costume – just to see…

I shimmied into it, but only just… It took me a solid ten minutes to fully get myself into it, but I DID get into it, and managed to get it zipped up – IN THE BACK – torturous. However… I found that the neck was still a wee bit tight on me (of all places – the neck) – I felt like I was choking. I also began to feel overheated in it. I suddenly began to panic and the whole “fight or flight” instincts kicked into hyper-drive. This chicken, however, was decidedly not in ANY shape to fight… NOR to fly!

I began the arduous task of trying to get myself OUT of this crazy costume, but realised straight away that it had been a WHOLE LOT easier to get INTO the costume than it would ever be to get OUT OF it. As in… it was proving to be impossible. I twisted and turned. I tried to use all sort of things that were lying about… in an attempt to somehow grab onto the TINY zipper pull. A plastic comb? Nope. A wooden back scratcher? Nope. Nothing I tried worked. I was getting SUPER scared by now…

I immediately realised that a change of strategy was required. I had been able to unzip it about 4 or 5 inches down the back… so I thought perhaps I could just slither one arm out of the sleeve and then up and out the top of the costume. This should allow me to maybe twist the thing around just enough so that I could better REACH the zip to be able to free myself. This sounds GREAT in theory, doesn’t it?

The next thing that happened, however, was not part of the plan.

I got my arm stuck. I managed to wriggle it out of the arm part of the costume itself, but when I went to slide it up and out the neck hole, that’s where things got… interesting. Apparently, I had simply not freed myself with the initial zipper lowering QUITE enough to be able to pull off this part of the plan. So now, one arm was trapped and I couldn’t get it back INTO the arm part either. At this point, my face was beet red and I could feel my blood pressure going to places it REALLY shouldn’t be.

I was SO CLOSE to getting emergency services involved. Of all the dumb ass predicaments I’ve ever got myself into (and there have been a fair few over the years…) this REALLY WAS right up there at the top of the list.

Finally, I decided to just have a sit-down in my wheelchair. I needed a rest. I took a LOT of very deep, halfway “cleansing” breaths. Then… I decided I needed to go back to the arm tactic once more… even if it meant ripping my beloved costume.

You have to understand – I have a LOT of very fond memories around this costume. The last thing I wanted to do was to ruin it. I was stuck though. Quite literally. Properly and thoroughly trapped in a giant, yellow chicken costume. I simply could NOT drag the local paramedics out to this kind of ridiculousness.

I decided to go about things more slowly… more methodically… and far more carefully than I had done in my previously panicked state. I would go little by little… bit by bit. Maybe if I went more slowly, I could avoid totally ripping the outfit off of me. I did feel some rather worrying “creaking” of the fabric, but it surprisingly remained intact. I was eventually able to wriggle my right arm out completely. After that was accomplished, I was able to implement the rest of my planned strategy and twist the costume around enough for me to reach the zip. I zipped it down the rest of the way and… THANK GOD, ALMIGHTY, I WAS FREE AT LAST!!!

As much as I LOVE that bloody chicken costume, it’ll be a long while before I try putting it on again. And I most assuredly won’t do it without someone here to rescue me from it when I need to take it off!

Thankfully, no emergency responders were needed for Operation Chicken Rescue…. not today, anyway.

Happy Halloween, everyone…

🎃👻🦇

EDITED TO ADD: IT IS OFFICIAL. I AM INJURED. (I’ve apparently hurt my back… the pain has just begun to kick in. Oh, happy days… injured by a chicken costume!)