"I was just in a panic!" she said. "I tried to go down the chicken ramp but I wouldn't fit. Then I tried to squeeze out the chicken house windows, but I wouldn't fit out them either."
As the sun rose over the farm It began to dawn on her that my stepdad wouldn't be home for another six hours to let her out.
"Finally, I just decided to muster up all my strength," she said. "I backed up to get as much of a running start as I could and karate kicked my way out of the chicken house. I knocked the chicken house door clean off!"
Well, that's one way to do it.
My mom relayed the story to me when I called to tell her about how I accidentally shot my car into my grandparents' rock-filled flower bed after Sunday dinner. It took AAA and a 20-foot chain to pull it out.
Thursday evening I was back in my car driving around the neighborhood trying to find a parking place that didn't have a "No Parking Friday Street Sweeping," sign in front of it.
"Screw it," I thought. "I'll just set my alarm, wake up before the street sweeper comes and move it."
So I woke up two hours later than I meant to and went running out of the building in my pink flannel pajamas with the little black poodles and the glow-in-the-dark Eiffel Towers that my mom gave me the Christmas before last. I ran out into the street with my car keys, looked to the left and the right and saw nothing but asphalt.
"Sons a bitches!" I shouted in the middle of the street and stomped back into my building with my car keys.
I called the city for the location of my vehicle and found out that if I picked it up in the next four hours it would cost me $117 plus a $40 ticket. After that the fees would skyrocket even more. So I immediately threw my hair up in a bun, pulled a fleece over my pajama top, put on a pair of jeans and stomped about 25 blocks out to the towing yard that held my car hostage.
There didn't seem to be a car in the entire neighborhood. All towed away no doubt. And as I walked farther out toward the tow yard soon there were no longer sidewalks either and I was just kicking trash down the potholed street under the freeway overpass. Frankly, it seemed like the kind of place that could use a damn street sweeper.
Currently reading : Sam Shepard : Seven Plays (Buried Child, Curse of the Starving Class, The Tooth of Crime, La Turista, Tongues, Savage Love, True West)
By Sam Shepard
Release date: By 01 May, 1984
