Shannon Stacey


True Confessions–The Chicken Feet

I’m just going to get this whole chicken feet thing out of the way right now. It comes up occassionally, so I’ll let y’all in on the joke.

In yesterday’s meme, I had to list three things that scare me and my answer was earwigs (I blame the Wrath of Kahn), ice (when you have a fear of being underwater, this seems natural) and chicken feet.

I’m not afraid of chickens. I spent more than my share of time in the toy aisle playing with Chicken Dance Elmo. Perdue commercials don’t keep me up at night. Chickens I don’t mind. Their feet, when detached from their bodies, send me screaming into the night.

When I was a child, I managed to sneak some viewing of the movie “The Deep”. (You know, I’m pretty sure that’s the movie. I honestly don’t have the guts to watch it again and make sure it’s the right one.) Anyway, there’s a scene with a woman lying on a bed, lots of dark and sexual undertones. A Voodoo guy sneaks into her room and is doing his Voodoo thing. Well, he took a dried up chicken foot and ran it over her stomach, pressing the little nasty claws into her skin just a little. As an adult, I have no idea why that scene affected me so much. As a child, I think I threw up in my mouth. And a terror was born.

Here’s the progression: see chicken feet, run screaming—knocking over or leaping anything in the way, hide, hyperventilate, and sometimes vomit. And I remember nothing between seeing the hideous, nasty thing and somebody standing over me saying “Shannon, what the :censor: is wrong with you?” My mother said my leaping a black, spiked fence in a single bound was quite a feat. I wish I could remember it, because that’s something I can’t do as a rule. But there were chicken feet behind me, and why take the time to find a gate?

Now, I know there has to be at least one person thinking “Wouldn’t it be fun to take a rubber chicken foot and scare Shannon at conference?”

The talk afterwards will not be “Wasn’t it funny when Shannon squealed and jumped out of her chair?”

It will be “OMG, remember the year that Shannon chick started screaming and jumped across the tables, sending conference chicken catapulting across the room into Nora’s lap, and then she ran across the heads of the 3 editors and 4 agents like Crocodile Dundee in the subway, and then she vomited in the potted palm?”

So there it is.

9 comments to “True Confessions–The Chicken Feet”

  1. Jaci Burton
    Comment
    1
      · November 4th, 2005 at 9:27 am · Link

    :lmao: But every editor and agent would remember you when you queried them. Helluva promo idea, Shan. :rofl:

    *bawk*



  2. Ann Wesley Hardin
    Comment
    2
      · November 4th, 2005 at 1:40 pm · Link

    *cluck cluck* Gonna call you Chicken Wimple.



  3. Charlene
    Comment
    3
      · November 4th, 2005 at 2:59 pm · Link

    Made me spill my :coffee:



  4. Diana
    Comment
    4
      · November 4th, 2005 at 6:25 pm · Link

    When you tempt us with a promise of a performance like THAT, Shannon….:clap::cheer::lmao::rofl:
    Okay…:eyebrow:



  5. Kate
    Comment
    5
      · November 4th, 2005 at 9:41 pm · Link

    did I ever tell you about my grandmother’s soup, doll?

    I won’t. Not if it’ll make ya toss your cookies on Nora. Just be glad you can avoid those eastern European grannies.



  6. Jordan
    Comment
    6
      · November 5th, 2005 at 12:35 am · Link

    :lmao: Oh, it’s so tempting.:devil:



  7. Shannon
    Comment
    7
      · November 5th, 2005 at 9:57 am · Link

    I think I’ll pass. :eyebrow:

    Being known as the person who surpassed the RWA’s 25th anniversary funeral dirge in notoriety doesn’t really appeal to me all that much. :doh:

    Nor does Kate’s granny’s soup.

    I think I’ll ask my mom to take a few minutes to write down her recollection of one of my most traumatic chicken feet episodes to date. :nod: If she does, I’ll post it.:crazy:



  8. Anna Lucia
    Comment
    8
      · November 6th, 2005 at 5:11 pm · Link

    Shan, I faithfully swear never to scare you with chicken feet.

    I LONG to scare you with chicken feet, I dream about it, I plan it…. but I won’t execute the plan, I promise.

    That is if you, in reciprocal, promise never to introduce spiders, alive or dead, into my a) face cloth b) food or c) underwear.



  9. Gabriele
    Comment
    9
      · November 7th, 2005 at 3:00 pm · Link

    Eeeeeeek, spiders drive me to artistic performances that would turn Tarzan green with envy. I also dress in a space suit complete with helmet and gloves before I remove them from my flat with the vacuum cleaner.







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