Free Range Chickens Essay, Research Paper

There is a time in every person’s life when they must shed the restricting skin of life under their parents’ roof, and become responsible adults capable of living on their own. We all have been in this place, with varying degrees of success. Unfortunately, my very first apartment was a fiasco that has left permanent scars seared to the very depths of my soul. I still cannot recall two and a half months of this eight- month cataclysmic event. This is most likely due to some sort of post- traumatic stress syndrome, or the loss of memory that occurs when one has indulged in some heavy duty binge drinking. Nevertheless this is an event that has changed me in so many ways, I cannot fathom where to begin. The outcome of this event in my life was influenced by three major factors; my ill-fated choice of living companions, my natural affinity for alcohol, and the unfortunate arrival of innocent chickens into our lives.

At 18 years of age, bidding my parents a fond farewell, I began rampaging through the streets of Olympia wildly intoxicated with my freedom, as well as some other intoxicants that were coursing through my veins. Although I can take a considerable amount of responsibility for most of the actions that transpired, I cannot take full credit for the downward spiral into debauchery my life took over the course of these months. My roommates aren’t entirely without fault. Yes, they were my partners in crime down the path of darkness. I will never forget these people no matter how hard I try. Kendra Long, may God have mercy on your soul. Kendra Long, notorious punk rock girl, welfare mom, and raging alcoholic. Whenever she was not caring for her daughter Madison, she could often be found on the floor passed out… in a puddle of urine. I would come home from time to time and find her amongst an assortment of empty alcohol bottles lying halfway in and halfway out of some doorway in the apartment. This became ritualistic, sometimes she would wake up and whimper to me that she had peed her pants, I’d often tell her that everything would probably be alright and to go back to sleep. She was my original roommate; the others came shortly thereafter (I cannot say precisely when due to my lack of clarity at this point; Kendra, being 21, kept the house in no short supply of booze). Danny-boy also hailed from this cess pot known as “punk rock,” and could easily be recognized from at least a quarter of a mile away, due to his flaming red hair (all natural, of course), which he kept in the traditional punk rock fashion. Straight up in the air, and down the middle of his skull, this style of course is known as the Mohawk. Sometimes he would make spikes of it and he would remind me of some unusual dinosaur parading around my living room. He came to live with us after Kendra picked him up off the side of the road one day. She brought him straight home and asked me if she could keep him. I didn’t see why not, I thought it might do her some good, maybe give her something to do besides drink. My mistake. Finally there was John who had been living on my couch for at least three weeks before I discovered that I had a new roommate. Danny-boy had known him from school (or so he said), and he needed a place to stay. Out of the three, he was probably the least annoying. That is if you don’t find smelly hippies annoying. But he cleaned up after Kendra, put weird food in the fridge, and even paid me his share of the rent on time. Things went well for a short while, we would all sit in front of the apartment watching Madison play with the hundreds of Cambodian kids that all lived upstairs, and pass time by collecting the “Are you aware of the sexual predator that lives in your neighborhood” leaflets that were handed out door to door. We had at least five of their mug shots hanging up at once. We would take old ones down and put new ones up as they came, they never stayed for long. Things seemed good, our little surrogate family was getting along just fine, and we were all perfectly content. Of course, things couldn’t be allowed to remain this way for long.

It all started when I came home one day to find that a friend of mine who raised free-range chickens had brought over a little gift for Kendra. About 10 to 15 baby chicks running around my living room. She begged and pleaded with me to let her keep them and eventually won me over by threatening to cut off my alcohol supply. The chickens were a novelty at first, and I figured, what harm could it do? How wrong I was. The little chicks were kept in the bathroom due to the fact that they were constantly *censored*ting on the floor and chirping incessantly. As the days passed, one by one, they began to disappear. No one had a clue, and Kendra was convinced that I was somehow behind it and waited to catch me in the act. I honestly had no idea what was happening. The mystery was solved, however, when I came home from work early one day to find John in the living room methodically exploding chickens in my microwave. He had a very guilty look on his face and proceeded to tell me how he was going mad being kept up all night by the chicks. Apparently in the still of the night their chirping was amplified by the hollowness of the bathroom floor right next to where he was sleeping. This morbid turn of events didn’t sit well, and neither one of us wanted to endure the wrath of Kendra. I informed him, however, that he better tell her that night. I made sure to be somewhere else, as I had no desire to witness the carnage. The next day I came home to discover that John just couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he had been killing her chickens via my microwave, so …he told her I was. This of course brought everything to a near apocalyptic ending. No one from this point on trusted or liked one another; it became a free-for-all sabotage session. My things began to disappear, my waterbed got popped, we did mean and spiteful things to each other. In the end the one with their name on the lease and phone bill was screwed the most. When we were finally done with our blood feud, the apartment had accrued $10,000 worth of damage and the phone had calls to every porn line that has ever existed. To this day, I still owe money on that bill, and I still have the occasional nightmares that I might wake to find myself in that hellhole again.

Free Range Chickens

Jason Mercado

English 101

There is a time in every person’s life when they must shed the restricting skin of life under their parents’ roof, and become responsible adults capable of living on their own. We all have been in this place, with varying degrees of success. Unfortunately, my very first apartment was a fiasco that has left permanent scars seared to the very depths of my soul. I still cannot recall two and a half months of this eight- month cataclysmic event. This is most likely due to some sort of post- traumatic stress syndrome, or the loss of memory that occurs when one has indulged in some heavy duty binge drinking. Nevertheless this is an event that has changed me in so many ways, I cannot fathom where to begin. The outcome of this event in my life was influenced by three major factors; my ill-fated choice of living companions, my natural affinity for alcohol, and the unfortunate arrival of innocent chickens into our lives.

At 18 years of age, bidding my parents a fond farewell, I began rampaging through the streets of Olympia wildly intoxicated with my freedom, as well as some other intoxicants that were coursing through my veins. Although I can take a considerable amount of responsibility for most of the actions that transpired, I cannot take full credit for the downward spiral into debauchery my life took over the course of these months. My roommates aren’t entirely without fault. Yes, they were my partners in crime down the path of darkness. I will never forget these people no matter how hard I try. Kendra Long, may God have mercy on your soul. Kendra Long, notorious punk rock girl, welfare mom, and raging alcoholic. Whenever she was not caring for her daughter Madison, she could often be found on the floor passed out… in a puddle of urine. I would come home from time to time and find her amongst an assortment of empty alcohol bottles lying halfway in and halfway out of some doorway in the apartment. This became ritualistic, sometimes she would wake up and whimper to me that she had peed her pants, I’d often tell her that everything would probably be alright and to go back to sleep. She was my original roommate; the others came shortly thereafter (I cannot say precisely when due to my lack of clarity at this point; Kendra, being 21, kept the house in no short supply of booze). Danny-boy also hailed from this cess pot known as “punk rock,” and could easily be recognized from at least a quarter of a mile away, due to his flaming red hair (all natural, of course), which he kept in the traditional punk rock fashion. Straight up in the air, and down the middle of his skull, this style of course is known as the Mohawk. Sometimes he would make spikes of it and he would remind me of some unusual dinosaur parading around my living room. He came to live with us after Kendra picked him up off the side of the road one day. She brought him straight home and asked me if she could keep him. I didn’t see why not, I thought it might do her some good, maybe give her something to do besides drink. My mistake. Finally there was John who had been living on my couch for at least three weeks before I discovered that I had a new roommate. Danny-boy had known him from school (or so he said), and he needed a place to stay. Out of the three, he was probably the least annoying. That is if you don’t find smelly hippies annoying. But he cleaned up after Kendra, put weird food in the fridge, and even paid me his share of the rent on time. Things went well for a short while, we would all sit in front of the apartment watching Madison play with the hundreds of Cambodian kids that all lived upstairs, and pass time by collecting the “Are you aware of the sexual predator that lives in your neighborhood” leaflets that were handed out door to door. We had at least five of their mug shots hanging up at once. We would take old ones down and put new ones up as they came, they never stayed for long. Things seemed good, our little surrogate family was getting along just fine, and we were all perfectly content. Of course, things couldn’t be allowed to remain this way for long.

It all started when I came home one day to find that a friend of mine who raised free-range chickens had brought over a little gift for Kendra. About 10 to 15 baby chicks running around my living room. She begged and pleaded with me to let her keep them and eventually won me over by threatening to cut off my alcohol supply. The chickens were a novelty at first, and I figured, what harm could it do? How wrong I was. The little chicks were kept in the bathroom due to the fact that they were constantly *censored*ting on the floor and chirping incessantly. As the days passed, one by one, they began to disappear. No one had a clue, and Kendra was convinced that I was somehow behind it and waited to catch me in the act. I honestly had no idea what was happening. The mystery was solved, however, when I came home from work early one day to find John in the living room methodically exploding chickens in my microwave. He had a very guilty look on his face and proceeded to tell me how he was going mad being kept up all night by the chicks. Apparently in the still of the night their chirping was amplified by the hollowness of the bathroom floor right next to where he was sleeping. This morbid turn of events didn’t sit well, and neither one of us wanted to endure the wrath of Kendra. I informed him, however, that he better tell her that night. I made sure to be somewhere else, as I had no desire to witness the carnage. The next day I came home to discover that John just couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he had been killing her chickens via my microwave, so …he told her I was. This of course brought everything to a near apocalyptic ending. No one from this point on trusted or liked one another; it became a free-for-all sabotage session. My things began to disappear, my waterbed got popped, we did mean and spiteful things to each other. In the end the one with their name on the lease and phone bill was screwed the most. When we were finally done with our blood feud, the apartment had accrued $10,000 worth of damage and the phone had calls to every porn line that has ever existed. To this day, I still owe money on that bill, and I still have the occasional nightmares that I might wake to find myself in that hellhole again.

Free Range Chickens

Jason Mercado

English 101