This weekend the husband and I went to IHOP for some delightful breakfasting. Now if you know me very well, you know that I get ridiculously excited over the prospect of pancakes, but only if they are smothered in Maple syrup. This is one my favorite things. Well, on Sunday morning I decided to throw caution to the wind and instead of buttermilk have apple crisp pancakes with a side of eggs and bacon. As soon as the waitress – a chatty girl named Sissy (seriously) – placed the food before us we dove in.
It wasn't until the last bite of eggs that I suddenly froze in horror. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the food, but I was overcome with panic. I couldn't put that last bit into my mouth. I was disgusted beyond words. So I sat my fork down and tried to assess the situation and determine what it was about the eggs that caused me to freak out. After a few moments of trying to act way cooler than I felt, I decided to not psycho analyze myself in the middle of IHOP and proceeded to forget the egg incident and continue to pancakes. (Side note: They were delish.)
It wasn't until this morning when I was recounting the tale of my irrational egg fear to a coworker (hi Jen) that it hit what had happened. After 23 years a very tramatic memory forced itself to surface. Okay, so stop right there, perverts. No, I was not molested by and egg. No one put an egg up my ass or anything like that. It was far more innocent that anything like that.
I can remember being about five or six and standing in a kitchen chair in my great grandmother's kitchen. We were making a cake, and she was especially good about letting me "help" her with the baking. I was wearing one of Nene's aprons and I was leaning over the edge of the counter cracking eggs into the mixing bowl. I was three eggs in when I noticed that the egg I was holding felt a little heavier, like it was hardboiled. Seeing the apprehension on my face, Nene prompted me to go a head and get to cracking. So I gently smashed the egg into the side of the bowl then held it over to empty the yellow and white contents.
The next few moments played over in my mind like a movie slowed down for dramatic effect. Instead of white and yolk falling from the egg, a fetal chick plunged into the bowl with a small "thump" and a poof of the dry ingredients going into the air. I froze, in horror at the realization that I was looking at a dead baby chicken in the bowl of chocolate batter. When I could move again, I stiffened, screamed and fell backwards to the floor taking the bowl and chicken fetus with me.
And then the memory ends abruptly. I can't remember what Nene did to calm me down or if we finished making the cake. Though I do suspect that if I regained my senses at all, I would have demanded a chick funeral and burial service. So I'm assuming this was just one of many events of my childhood my elders chose to "just not talk about." Besides, I was a fairly sensitive child and I'm pretty sure I chose to instantly repressed that memory, as Easter would have been ruined for me for years to come. And god knows any holiday that allows for costuming, messy egg dying and competitive gaming could NOT be eliminated from my yearly celebrations.
However, I am a very sick person and now that I've recovered this memory I cannot shake the panic that one day I might find another fetal chicken while making an omelet. Twenty-three years later, the fear of this happening a second time is nearly crippling. So to help put my mind at rest, I have spent the majority of the morning doing Internet searches on the current chicken farming industry in the United States. As it turns out, I am at very little risk for getting a chicken fetus now days. Apparently – and I'm not proud of my ignorance – chickens lay eggs even if they don't come into contact it with rooster, thus no fertilization takes place. And this is the case with chicken egg harvesting. They are unfertilized!
And this was very comforting for about ten seconds. Then my research took another unexpected turn. I now am a fan of something called "free range" farming. The conditions that chickens are kept in are deplorable. Many of them never even get to stand up, but instead live their entire lives in wire cages. It seems so cruel to me. So free range means that the chickens live happily out in the open on a farm and have their eggs the way nature intended.
Sounds GREAT, right?
Well, I’m now having a fight between the moral conviction that I believe buying local, free range food is the right way to do business VERSES my overwhelming panic that I might come into contact with a chicken fetus this way. Get it? When chickens are living on a free range farm then its not like they can keep the roosters from breezing in a going after some fowl ass. Thus the chances for fetal chicken egg syndrome to re-occur are greater. So I'm in a fight with myself over which is better: Dealing with yet another phobia or buying a much more environmental and moral product.
Sometimes being THIS crazy can be so tiring.
It wasn't until the last bite of eggs that I suddenly froze in horror. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the food, but I was overcome with panic. I couldn't put that last bit into my mouth. I was disgusted beyond words. So I sat my fork down and tried to assess the situation and determine what it was about the eggs that caused me to freak out. After a few moments of trying to act way cooler than I felt, I decided to not psycho analyze myself in the middle of IHOP and proceeded to forget the egg incident and continue to pancakes. (Side note: They were delish.)
It wasn't until this morning when I was recounting the tale of my irrational egg fear to a coworker (hi Jen) that it hit what had happened. After 23 years a very tramatic memory forced itself to surface. Okay, so stop right there, perverts. No, I was not molested by and egg. No one put an egg up my ass or anything like that. It was far more innocent that anything like that.
I can remember being about five or six and standing in a kitchen chair in my great grandmother's kitchen. We were making a cake, and she was especially good about letting me "help" her with the baking. I was wearing one of Nene's aprons and I was leaning over the edge of the counter cracking eggs into the mixing bowl. I was three eggs in when I noticed that the egg I was holding felt a little heavier, like it was hardboiled. Seeing the apprehension on my face, Nene prompted me to go a head and get to cracking. So I gently smashed the egg into the side of the bowl then held it over to empty the yellow and white contents.
The next few moments played over in my mind like a movie slowed down for dramatic effect. Instead of white and yolk falling from the egg, a fetal chick plunged into the bowl with a small "thump" and a poof of the dry ingredients going into the air. I froze, in horror at the realization that I was looking at a dead baby chicken in the bowl of chocolate batter. When I could move again, I stiffened, screamed and fell backwards to the floor taking the bowl and chicken fetus with me.
And then the memory ends abruptly. I can't remember what Nene did to calm me down or if we finished making the cake. Though I do suspect that if I regained my senses at all, I would have demanded a chick funeral and burial service. So I'm assuming this was just one of many events of my childhood my elders chose to "just not talk about." Besides, I was a fairly sensitive child and I'm pretty sure I chose to instantly repressed that memory, as Easter would have been ruined for me for years to come. And god knows any holiday that allows for costuming, messy egg dying and competitive gaming could NOT be eliminated from my yearly celebrations.
However, I am a very sick person and now that I've recovered this memory I cannot shake the panic that one day I might find another fetal chicken while making an omelet. Twenty-three years later, the fear of this happening a second time is nearly crippling. So to help put my mind at rest, I have spent the majority of the morning doing Internet searches on the current chicken farming industry in the United States. As it turns out, I am at very little risk for getting a chicken fetus now days. Apparently – and I'm not proud of my ignorance – chickens lay eggs even if they don't come into contact it with rooster, thus no fertilization takes place. And this is the case with chicken egg harvesting. They are unfertilized!
And this was very comforting for about ten seconds. Then my research took another unexpected turn. I now am a fan of something called "free range" farming. The conditions that chickens are kept in are deplorable. Many of them never even get to stand up, but instead live their entire lives in wire cages. It seems so cruel to me. So free range means that the chickens live happily out in the open on a farm and have their eggs the way nature intended.
Sounds GREAT, right?
Well, I’m now having a fight between the moral conviction that I believe buying local, free range food is the right way to do business VERSES my overwhelming panic that I might come into contact with a chicken fetus this way. Get it? When chickens are living on a free range farm then its not like they can keep the roosters from breezing in a going after some fowl ass. Thus the chances for fetal chicken egg syndrome to re-occur are greater. So I'm in a fight with myself over which is better: Dealing with yet another phobia or buying a much more environmental and moral product.
Sometimes being THIS crazy can be so tiring.
1 comments:
maybe you better forget about baby chickens and concentrate on ike syndrome. looks more dangerous to big.
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