Itsalotta Chicken (standard:humor, 3779 words)
Author: Reid Laurence	Added: Mar 02 2007	Views/Reads: 3181/2068	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
What about the food we eat? Is it safe? What's all that processed stuff doing to our bodies anyway? Read on and find out...

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

of our rectangular, dining room table. “Right about now, I'm think'in 
road kill is look'in pretty good ta me. What about you Nat?” 

“I saw a smooshed squirrel on the road coming home,” replied Natalie.
“Is it too much like eating cat?” 

“There are those who might think it strange,” answered Ellie. “But I
think you're on the right track As long as it doesn't involve an 
overgrown bird or anything with a beak, for that matter.” 

“Now girls,” interrupted my wife. “You know road kill is not the answer.
Besides,” she continued. “It's wasteful not to eat what you're father 
worked hard to prepare for us.” 

“Mom,” said Natalie, still stuck in complain mode and for all the food
we had in front of us, I just couldn't understand why. “I'm growing a 
mustache from the steroids in this crap! ‘Itsalotta Chicken' has gotta 
be one of the worst things you can put in your body, and we've been 
eating it every day now. Why do you go along with him?” 

“There's a good reason to it, Nat.” 

“That's right my swan,” I said. “You go girl. Tell her.” 

“As far as meat goes... it's very low in fat,” she continued saying.
“And besides that, it's low calorie too. Just eat the white meat.” 

“Exactly,” I interjected. “That's exactly why I do what I do, and when
we're through losing body fat, we can easily maintain our desired 
weight by continuing to eat the way we've learned.” 

“I'm moving to Australia,” muttered Ellie. 

“I'm already packed,” said Natalie in agreement. But after the smoke had
cleared and we'd finished eating, things settled down to the usual slow 
pace of late evening and it wasn't long before Mary was saying 
goodnight to all of us from her side of our bed, focusing on getting a 
good nights sleep as she created her very own, patented, head sandwich. 
This arrangement utilized her head as the main ingredient, nestled 
between two soft pillows which she used to block out unwanted sound 
from the living room, and any pesky light that may have otherwise found 
its way to her eyes. 

“Well girls,” I said to my two daughters, as Mary dozed off. “I think
I'll turn in too. It's been a long day.” 

“You know it,” said Natalie, in a more complacent mood. 

“But I must admit that I owe my high energy level to the wholesome food
we've been eating and to ‘Itsalotta Chicken' for helping me get my 
weight where it should be.” 

“You're not gonna waste time writing them an over zealous, ass-kissing
letter are you? Why are you such a brown nose?” 

“Don't be a brat Natalie,” I replied, on my way to join my wife in the
land of nod. “That's not a bad idea you just had though. There might be 
some free chicken in it, who knows?” 

“Anything but that dad,” pleaded Ellie. “We're just this close,” she
continued saying, as she illustrated her point by pressing together the 
forefinger and thumb of her dainty right hand... “to killing you in 
your sleep.” 

“Yeah dad,” added Natalie. “‘Cause that's the only way we're gonna get
you ta stop making chicken for dinner. Must we resort to extreme 
measures?” 

“Nonsense,” I maintained. “Someday you'll see the light girls, I just
know it. And when you do, you'll be thanking me. In the meantime 
though, I'm gonna get me some shut-eye. You have a good one,” I added, 
and climbed into my side of the bed. Never realizing - concerning the 
events which were soon to follow - how wrong I'd been all along and 
how, by method of my own madness, I had navigated myself and my family 
to a place where no man had been before, that is, not without his own 
knowledge and awareness... 

The next morning, I awoke to what sounded like a small bomb going off on
the opposite end of our house, and sprang out of bed when I heard 
Natalie cry out, “help! Someone help me!” But as I got to my feet and 
ran toward my open, bedroom door to find out what the trouble was, I 
struck my head on what strangely enough, had to have been the wall over 
the door, and ended up flat on my back, very nearly knocking myself out 
cold. When I finally got up, I turned around to find that my body had 
made a deep impression in the floor like a crater from a meteor, but to 
make matters worse, the impression I'd left was nearly as big as our 
king size bed. Scratching my head in wonder, It wasn't long before I 
heard Natalie yelling “help me!” again, but this time, I was careful to 
duck under the head of the door and proceeded to run down the hallway 
which led to her room, but all the while and unbeknownst to me, either 
the hallway had grown smaller or I had somehow grown bigger... “I'm 
stuck Nat!” I yelled in return. “I'm stuck in the hallway between 
walls. I can't get my damn shoulders loose. What's happened to me Nat? 
I must be seven feet tall! This has gotta be a bad dream right? When do 
I wake up?” 

“It's not a dream dad,” I heard her say, as her voice seemed to echo off
walls in different parts of the house. “You did this to us... you and 
your ‘Itsalotta Chicken'! Now do you believe me? Now that it's... it's 
too late?!” But even as she spoke, I could feel something very powerful 
strike me from behind with the force of some huge raging beast. 
Needless to say, the impact of the force knocked my shoulders loose and 
threw me to the floor in front of Natalie's room. Feeling as if I'd 
been mauled by a Grizzly bear, I looked up to find a huge, giant of a 
creature looming over me which I had to admit, reminded me of my 
lovely, petite wife but in stature, roughly four times her size. “Who 
are you?” I asked the creature. “And what have you done to my wife?” 

“I am your wife, jerk! Look at me now... are you satisfied? I should be
wrestling on t.v.. Thanks to you, I'm bigger than Hulk Hogan. It was 
that damn chicken, wasn't it. You wouldn't stop would you. I begged 
you, we all begged you, but no... you had to put that crap on the table 
again and again, no matter what anyone said. We warned you, now look at 
what you've done,” she said, as she grabbed me by what was left of the 
ragged night shirt I'd gone to bed in - now in tatters - as it had 
ripped apart in the time it'd taken an out of control pituitary gland 
to work its evil. “What are you doing my dove?” I asked innocently, as 
my amazon like wife picked me up like a baby and threw me to my huge 
feet. 

“I don't know why, but I'm helping you. Now what's with Natalie? Is she
suffering from giantism too, or did it skip a generation?”she asked, 
most facetiously. 

“I don't know,” I replied. “I never made it that far. I got stuck in our
tiny hallway before I could get there.” 

“It's three feet wide, putz. That's a normal dimension, but we're not
normal anymore, thanks to you. C'mon,” she continued, as she strode the 
last few steps to Natalie's room. “Help me with your daughter.” But 
when we opened the door, we were astonished to find nothing but a huge 
hole where the bed had been - which now laid flat on the basement floor 
- and another great beast who resembled my daughter sitting atop the 
bed, weeping into her own, huge hands. “I hit my head in the doorway,” 
she said, as she wiped the tears from her face. “Then I saw myself in 
the bathroom mirror! I couldn't believe my eyes, and I threw myself 
into bed. The next thing I knew... I was in the basement. Dad,” she 
exclaimed, shaking her overgrown fist in my direction, exchanging grief 
for anger. “This is your fault. Look at me! I won't fit in my clothes, 
or my car, or anything. I'm... I'm a beast,” she yelled up at me, as I 
peered down into the gaping sinkhole created by my daughters unwelcome, 
gargantuan weight. “How do I get out of here?” she questioned, still 
dazed by the fall. “Hold on,” I replied, as I kneeled down to stretch 
out my newly developed, long arm. “Take my hand,” I said. And with all 
of the ease in which my wife had picked me up in the hallway, I had 
pulled Natalie to the first floor in a flash and set her gently to her 
huge, hairy feet. It wasn't long before all the noise we caused stirred 
Ellie from her beauty rest, and after an “Ouch!” that people must've 
heard for ten miles in any direction, she walked from her room to the 
hall, rubbing her head and staring blankly at the sight of us. “I hit 
my head,” she muttered. “But, how's that possible,” she said out loud, 
in wonder. “The wall is... hey,” she exclaimed, as the sight of us 
finally registered in her dazed mind. “You're huge! You're all giants. 
What did you do with my family? Where'd you put them?” 

“We are your family,” returned Natalie. “This is dad's fault. He turned
us into freaks with that damn ‘Itsalotta Chicken'. Now whadda we do?” 

“I don't know,” I answered. “But... what was that? Did you hear that
noise?” I asked. “It's coming from the living room.” 

“Oh my God!” exclaimed Natalie, as all of her enormous, muscular body
began to tremble in fear. “Shit! It sounds like a lion or something,” 
she said. “Do you think one of the zoo animals escaped? Was there 
anything on the news?” 

“I didn't hear anything on t.v.,” replied Mary, as her own equally
enormous body gave her fear away also. “But who knows, it might've just 
happened and it hasn't made the news yet. Uh, oh,” she continued 
saying, as whatever it was that was now trapped in our house was 
obviously large - as we could tell by its roar - and obviously unhappy 
in its captive state. 

“What now?” asked Ellie. “Whadda we do? We're as trapped as he is.” 

“Here,” I said in a low voice, doing my best not to startle whatever it
was that was ‘trapped', as Ellie put it. And turning into the laundry 
room - halfway down the hallway - I remembered the snow shovel I'd kept 
stored against the wall and as I grasped it in my hand - which was now 
easily twice the size it had been - I grew more confident. ‘What the 
hell. I'm a damn beast myself.' I thought. ‘What've I got to fear? I 
bet I must weigh four hundred pounds, give or take a few.' But as the 
floor joists beneath my feet strained under the pressure of my great, 
hulking body, whatever had paid us a visit began to roar again, and the 
confidence I'd built seemed to seep from me as the blood from an open 
wound - which was just the type of thing that began to weigh heavily on 
my panicky mind. “I'll g-go first,” I stuttered. “You s-s-stay here, 
okay?” 

“Okay,” replied Natalie. 

“Wait!” said Mary. “What if...” 

“I'll be okay,” I answered, with all the nerve I could gather and ever
so cautiously, approached the living room to face my fears. 

Peering around the edge of wall which opened out into the room, I
couldn't believe my eyes. The animal I found was just as we had 
imagined, but how it had made its way into our home was anybodies 
guess. Annoyed with me, this zoo keepers runaway let out another loud 
roar and took a swipe with an enormous front paw through the empty air 
before him, as if to warn me not to come any closer. It was all I could 
do to collect my wits enough just to pick up a broken, studded collar 
that lay on the floor at my feet and make my way back down the hall to 
my shaken, small family. “Here,” I said, revealing the collar to 
Natalie. “I found t-t-this on the f-f-floor. It's a b-b-big c-c-cat 
alright. Just l-like we thought.” 

“Well, what in the world?” asked Mary. “How do you suppose it got in?” 

“I don't know,” replied Natalie, staring down at the small collar which
was made to appear even smaller as she held it in her huge hand. “But I 
do know one thing. This was Ben's collar. What if that thing ate Ben?” 

“You mean Ben, our house cat?” I answered. “Oh God, poor Ben. I hope it
didn't hurt.” 

“Dad,” interjected Ellie. “What color was the thing in the living room?”


“I don't know... orange, I guess. Why?” 

“Did you give Ben any chicken?” she continued. 

“Uh... yeah, I guess. Just a little, at lunch time. I always thought he
liked it, an I always had leftovers. Hey, you don't think...” 

“That's exactly what I think dad. Proportionately, Ben grew the same way
we did. That's Ben out there!” And as Ellie finished speaking, Natalie 
ran out into the living room to meet her dear, old friend, cute little 
Ben - who was now the size of a large mountain lion. “Ben!” she yelled, 
and unable to contain herself, she walked toward the sleek, musclebound 
killer with arms outstretched and a tear in her great, big eye. “Oh 
Ben, what did he do to you?” she asked of the creature, as if she 
expected him to answer. But sure enough, her perception of what had 
been her loving pet began to pay off, as the beast stood up on all 
fours, walked calmly to her and began to rub his body against her legs 
- as he'd done in affection so many times in the past - the only 
difference now was of course, his immense size and strength. “What now 
dad?” questioned Natalie, in a more contemplative mood. “You didn't 
just wreck us did you... you had to wreck him too. Now look at him. We 
can't let him outside, that's for sure. He'll scare the neighbors and 
all the other pets. The cops will be here knocking on our door if 
anyone gets a look at him. Now what?” 

“I don't know,” I answered. “I just don't know what to do. Maybe the
hormones or whatever will wear off, who knows? Right now, all I know is 
one thing... I'm starved and there's nothing in the house.” 

“Great, now what?” rebuked my wife. “Tell me you don't have shopping on
your mind. You know I can't trust you with the shopping. I should've 
known better then to let you loose in the store. I'll do the food 
shopping from now on. Fork over the debit card mister, an make it 
snappy.” 

“C'mon Mary. Have a heart. Everyone makes mistakes. I promise, I won't
ever buy ‘Itsalotta Chicken' ever again. I swear.” 

“Really?” asked Ellie. 

“Can we really trust you?” asked Nat. 

“You know it,” I replied, only too willing to go along with the new
rule, since I never dreamed my good intentions could go awry the way 
they had. 

“Okay then Reid. I'll give you one more chance to make good. Who knows,
maybe in time the results of your so called, ‘low fat diet' will wear 
off and we'll shrink back to normal. In the meantime, don't dare buy 
any more cheap chicken.” 

“Don't you worry honey lamb,” I said, with all the meaning I could
possibly muster. “You can count on me.” And with that, I grabbed my car 
keys in my huge, burly fist and headed for the store. 

Later that evening, as the four of us sat around the dinner table -
floor joists bending and creaking beneath the combined load of our 
weight as they never had before - I decided to pop the question, as I 
usually had in the past, and asked them all what they thought of my 
cooking. “Not bad dad,” replied Natalie. 

“Thank God it isn't chicken,” muttered Ellie, as she dropped another
forkful past her huge, gaping jaws. 

“You can say that again,” agreed Mary. “And you still got to do your
Chinese Szechwan stir-fry didn'tcha?” 

“Yep,” I said in reply. 

“It's beef, isn't it?” asked Ellie, inquisitive as always. 

“Sure is,” I answered, biting off another forkful. “Boy that's good
stuff.” 

“Musta been expensive, huh dad?” she said, pursuing the question a bit
further. 

“Not really,” I said proudly. “I'm a smart shopper. I know what I'm
doing now, an I know where ta find the deals.” 

“The deals?” asked Mary, as she set her fork back into her dinner plate
and stared in my direction. “What deals? Tell me Reid, where did you 
get this?” 

“Why, the ‘Price Gouger' dear, where I always go.” 

“And what brand is it?” 

“Why... ‘Itsalotta' of course. It happens to be ‘Itsalotta Beef'. That's
how I got such a great deal on it, why?” 

“Oh nooo,” said the three of them nearly simultaneously, and as they
did, each one fell backwards in their chair, creating huge, individual 
depressions in the floor beneath them with well pronounced ‘thuds' as 
they landed. But I, much hungrier then usual - probably due I thought 
to my increased size and bulk - loaded up my plate again and wondered 
what it was I could've said that may have caused such reaction. “Oh 
well,” I said out loud. “Waste not, want not as they say, right Ben?” 
And as I looked in Ben's direction, he walked towards me and sat down 
on the floor next to me. Sitting straight up, I couldn't help but 
notice that his head now loomed far above the table even as he sat and 
was at a much more convenient, easier to reach height then before. So, 
taking advantage of this, I began dropping large chunks of beef into 
his open, waiting jaws as I calmly spoke. “Maybe this'll work out after 
all,” I said to him, as I watched him barely chew what dropped behind 
his two inch, front fangs. “After all, I don't even have'ta bend at the 
waist to feed you now.” 


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