Perils of a Poultry Princess

     How I end up working cattle wearing flip flops is often a mystery to me. I’ll be in the house, cleaning or cooking, walking around in flip flops. Clint will call and say “hey, I’m down here at the corral, can you come and help me for just a second?” I’ll say “do you need help working them? do I need to wear boots?” and he’ll say “nah, I just need you to stand there so the cows won’t run out into the pasture.”

  And that’s how I end up spending an hour or two climbing around on the corral fences, whacking at cows with sticks, trying to get them into the head chute. Or, I’ll run out in front of a cow and turn her and run completely OUT of my flip flops and end up barefoot for a moment on the damp ground, sending my germaphobic OCD into overdrive.

  I refuse to walk anywhere barefoot now, even in my own home. I have inside shoes and outside shoes and the twain shall never meet. I wash my flip flops obsessively by hand or in the washing machine. When I was a kid, we called flip flops “thongs” which brings great laughter to my children (and, me too, because at heart, I’m about 9).

  When I was a child, we never wore shoes. Not even to town. We’d climb out of that 48 GMC flat bed pickup, our feet fairly sizzling on the black, hot pavement. At the beginning of the summer, our feet would be tender and raw and we’d screech and run across the wal mart parking lot at top speed. By the end of the summer, our feet would be dyed a brown color from the black, hot tar melting and soft in places in the parking lot. We’d saunter slowly, trying to walk at a snail’s pace to prove how tough our feet were. I could tap on the bottom of my heel with a pencil and get a satisfying THWACK THWACK. The soles of my feet were tough and thick, like leather.

 Even when I first got married, Clint would marvel that I could walk down our rocky driveway barefoot without wincing or watching my step.

  Then one day…I’m not sure what happened…I found the thought of my bare feet on any surface made me cringe. I don’t mean like “oh, this is annoying” cringe, but “OH DEAR LORD I’M GETTING GERMS AND WORMS ON MY FEET” kind of cringe.

  What’s funny is we had an outdoor toilet as a child and if we had to go in the middle of the night, we just WENT. No flashlight. No shoes. Just me, five years old in the moonlight, traipsing along the dirt path, the damp grass, stepping up into the wooden outhouse, looking at the hole cut out in the wood…praying there were no spiders…not sliding around  because of the risk of splinters…looking out into the woods behind the house, hearing the wind and those vague walking noises you always seem to hear in the forest  when it’s dark…thinking it’s probably Big Foot, as that famous footage looked as though it was shot right behind my house…hurrying thru my business, then RUNNING at top speed, past the garden, past the back porch, leaping onto the front porch, yanking the screen door open, slamming it shut and jumping into bed…my feet still damp and dirty from my trip outside.

  Now I can’t even walk to my bathroom 10 feet from my own side of the bed barefoot, the thought of my bare feet on the floor.. then in my bed… something that would not let me sleep.

  Sometimes I can shut that part of myself off…if I have too. For instance, a few years ago I went to check the chickens. It was hot and we had just turned the fogger pumps on an hour earlier in the day. When fog is running, I check the chickens every hour or less. A fogger line can break inside the house and flood it in a matter of minutes. There is nothing worse than a flood inside a chicken house. It ruins all your hard work in one fell swoop.

  I had on a little zebra print sundress and cute little jeweled flip flops. I also had on a clip on fake ponytail, as I was trying to grow my own hair out and this was a quick, easy way to pull my hair back and just let it grow.

  Trevor and Mykka had come over and got into the pool and were floating around, relaxing. I hopped on the Kubota and headed out to check the chickens. House one and two were fine, and when I got to house three, I saw a feed truck and the driver was putting the feed from it into the feed bins. I said hello and hopped off and peeked into house three.

  The sound of the water hitting the floor in a great stream was the first thing I heard, and as my eyes adjusted to the dim, I saw a ten by ten stretch of just MUCK and YUCK. The only way to shut the water off is inside the house. I immediately screamed OH CRAP!!!. The truck driver looked up, startled. I yanked my ponytail off and threw it on the seat. I kicked  my cute, jeweled flip flops off and RAN into the  chicken house. I waded through the MUCK and YUCK, sinking in above my ankles.  I found the leak and drug the ladder over to the valve to shut it off, getting a face full of water and dirt as I did so. I climbed off the ladder and opened the door and walked back outside. That’s when I made eye contact with the truck driver, who was eyeing my fake ponytail lying on the Kubota seat. He looked down at my black, goo, poo covered feet. My hair hung limp and damp from the fog. My dress was filthy. My mascara slowly pooled under my eyes. My hands were wet and nasty. I stunk.  We just stared at each other for a minute. “you alright?” he asked. “yeah. had a fogger line blow. I fixed it.” I said. He stared at me for another second. “I’d have run in there for you and fixed that.” he said. “oh, it’s not your job! it’s my job. You’re doing your job!” I reminded him. “you sure must like those shoes…and…that hair.” he snorted a little, trying not to laugh. I started giggling and he joined in. I said “welp, you’ve got a story to tell about me now!” He said “boy, don’t I! I like to fell over when you pulled your hair off.”

  I got back on the Kubota and flew home as fast as I could. The closer I got to the house, the more dirty my feel felt. It looked as though I had black ankle boots on. It was starting to dry and fall off in chunks. I could see bits of feathers in the gunk.

  I don’t know at what point I started screaming, but Mykka and Trevor stood up in the pool and watched me pull over to the water hydrant. I screamed and shrieked and rinse my feet off but it wouldn’t get everything off. Trevor walked into the house and got the Dawn dishwashing liquid and I washed and scrubbed til my feet were sparkling. Then I went inside and took a long, hot shower, scrubbing my feet again til they were pink and raw.

  I thought of this yesterday…I had to go to town and had a sudden urge to treat myself to a pedicure. I love pedicures, but I only get them a couple times a year. I dislike sitting and being fussed over for very long. The young, sweet asian girl did a wonderful job and we visited about me being a chicken farmer. She tried to talk me into a manicure and I would have loved it… but with my job, it’s a waste of money. My hands are rough, calloused. I have tiny cuts on them from working on the cool cell pads. I have scars from the chicken’s claws.  I would ruin a manicure in one day. At one point, she was scrubbing the sides of my feet with a rough pumice stone. Then she suddenly went to the center of my foot and it tickled and I shrieked a little and laughed. She giggled too and warned me before she went to the other foot.

  When she was done, I paid her and slipped my clean, French manicured feet into my sparkly flip flops, admiring them and feeling very pampered.

 So today, under my nasty, poo covered chicken boots…are ten perfectly painted toenails. The chickens don’t know…the feed truck drivers don’t know…and they don’t care. But I know, and it makes me feel like the poultry princess I am, if even for just a few days.

  I’m thinking I might wear my pink sparkly tiara today as I clean my house. Every poultry princess has one…it’s state law, I do believe.