Sacrificial Chicken Soup

The day I thanked my neighbors for the gallons of soup they had blessed me with while I was down with COVID-19, via an app designed to communicate with the folks who live next door and elsewhere, it truly never dawned on me that I would have to later clarify that I’m not a practitioner of black magic, voodoo or other such things but that’s why we’re here today so let’s get into it.

Let’s back up just a little to first explain that I got COVID (the blue glitter variant) when a tiny mite of a child was reading a letter from a fairy in my front yard and decided to share some of the blue “fairy dust” that was in her letter with me by licking the palm of her hand, smushing it into the dust and then bopping me on the mouth with it as I bent down to say hello.

“I love you Fairy Lady,” she trilled as I choked on the magic. “I gived you some of my fairy dust!”

My home is the site of the Fairy Tree in Norfolk, VA where, since the start of the pandemic, children have left letters for the fairies who reply with handwritten notes the very next day. I often go outside to greet visitors who come to see the dozens of little houses, castles and oddities that have popped up courtesy of fairy fans and the Fae themselves.

Children home from school with everything from runny noses to COVID have been an occupational hazard of the place for me. I had no idea the little girl was sick when I bent down, outdoors, maskless, to greet her for my snoot full of glittery, blue COVID.

I got sick and tested positive for COVID a few days later.

So, I posted on the app that the fairies would be out of commission for a week of quarantine. I mentioned that nobody needed to worry because I was vaxxed and boosted so this should be a short-term issue.

People around here really appreciate the fairies which resulted in an outpouring of soup, mainly chicken soup.

Once I was through the worst of it and could sit at my laptop again, I decided to post a little thank you on the app which read as follows: “I’d like to thank all of the chickens who sacrificed their lives to become soup so that I could recover from COVID-19. I appreciate all the soup!”

That’s it. Posted. Done, but not over.

About 24 hours later my direct messages, comments, and my other socials began to fill up with comments from people railing against my practice of black magic.

“You disgusting demon worshipper! Chicken sacrifice is illegal,” one woman wrote.

Wait. What?

“People like you shouldn’t be allowed around children,” a man texted. “Fairies are demons and now animal sacrifice too!??”

Oh how they love to double down on their punctuation marks.

“See what these Democrats are really doing to not have the PLAGUE??” another demanded.

Wait. Democrats? How did that happen? And on and on it went. I thought it must be a joke but no.

I tried to clarify but people had apparently skimmed the post and taken the words “chicken” “sacrifice” and “COVID-19” without regard for the actual sentence, reality, or sanity. They were like a dog with a chicken bone, and they weren’t going to let it go.

Comments like those were stacking up like planes over LaGuardia Airport. However, I quickly realized that they weren’t from my actual neighbors but from out-of-state trolls on the app who had decided it was a great way to make it sound like someone who was vaccinated was admitting that the vaccines didn’t work so they had resorted to their go-to: “Democrat BLACK MAGIC.”

I kid you not.

This was definitely one of those times when someone would have been right to tell me, “You’ll laugh about this later.” Today’s that day.

Let it be known that Sacrificial Chicken is my go-to phrase. Let the word ring out throughout cyberspace that I’m down for a cookbook of that same name.

Recipes to include Chicken ala Catch-A-Satan, Burnt Offering Buffalo Wings, Drunken Demon Chicken Kebabs, Beelzebub Rub, Lucifer’s Extra-Large Nuggets, and Wicked Wings.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When it gives you the power to command an army of dark and delicious minions make it your next book.