I couldn’t care less about deflated footballs and Tom
Brady’s alleged need to gain an edge by cheating. The real issue of importance
is the chicken incident that occurred at our house recently.
Our neighbor, Tim was going on vacation and asked us to take
care of his chickens. George said he wanted no part of chickens, but would take
care of the rest of the animals and house. This left me and our other neighbors,
Molly and husband Dickey, to handle the daily chores of feeding and gathering
eggs. I’d grown up helping my aunt with her egg business, (truthfully, I was
mostly running away from the damn pecking chickens). I at least knew what was
expected of us, and since there were only 15 chickens compared to her hundreds,
the task seemed manageable.
Molly was taking care of egg gathering every day, until one
afternoon she came over and was very concerned one of the hens refused to leave
the nest with eggs for the last three days. Dear God, it was a broody hen, and
Tim had warned us never let the eggs go for more than a day or they will start
to turn them into little chickens instead of omelets.
George suddenly needed to conduct important business in his
office, and took off like a jet on an aircraft carrier. That left Dickey and I
to put on long sleeve shirts and gloves and head into battle.
“I hate chickens,” Dickey informed me.
“They’re like little terrorists, except with bigger
peckers.” I said.
“Seriously, this is no joking matter.”
“If I don’t laugh, I might mess myself.”
“Okay, you agree not to mess yourself and I agree to watch
you get that hen off the eggs.”
I don’t think this arrangement was headed in my favor. We cautiously
opened the coop door and stepped inside, with me leading the way. There she
was! A grumpy mother hen sitting on her eggs, with a rooster perched on the
rafter above us standing guard. Without provocation he attacked. We turned and
ran out the coop door with arms flapping.
“Fuck! He’s trying to kill me,” I yelled. “I think he got
me, I’m going to die from Bird flu.”
“Thank God you were in front of me, or he might have gotten
me and I have three small children.” Dickey said from his safe perch hiding
behind the now slammed shut door.
I looked at the smiling face of pastor Dickey. Yep, Dickey
was a pastor, minister, man of God, a bible-carrying sermonizer and I had
dropped the F bomb loud enough to be heard at the pearly gates.
“I’m so sorry for my language.”
“Don’t worry about it. If I’d gone in first I would have
been saying the F word also.”
We stood at the chicken wire windows looking in plotting our
next move, when George appeared.
“What was all that girlish screaming about?” He asked.
“I wasn’t screaming.”
Dickey looked up, “Yeh, that might have been me.”
George rolled his eyes, stuck his hand out demanding my
gloves. “Okay, Miss I-Know-Chickens, how do I get the hen off the nest?”
“Slide your hand under the hen, grab her by the feet and
carefully toss her off the nest.”
“I’d be more worried about that rooster.” Dickey said not
looking up from his window.
“No one said anything about a rooster.” George looked at me.
“Well, he might be a little pissed off at us for trying to
get at the hen.”
With that warning, George opened the coop door and entered
like a Ninja ready for action. Dickey and I held our positions at separate
windows outside the war zone. It was all over in a matter of seconds. The
rooster attacked, and with deft hands George grabbed him, feathers flying, and
tossed him out the opposite door into the chicken yard. He quickly grabbed the
hen by the feet and pitched her out while closing the door with his foot.
“Wow, that was amazing,” Dickey said, “He is like a
chicken-whisperer.”
“That was more like chicken chunking.” Looking through my window of chicken wire I
was kinda turned on by my chicken tossing warrior husband.
“Hey, you two chickens
get in here and get the eggs.”
“Don’t think there’s room for all of us, so I’ll wait here.”
Dickey said.
I reached into the nest and picked up the eggs. “Ick. Ick.
Ick. They’re hot.”
“You’d be hot too if someone sat on you for the last three
days.”
“Now what do we do with them?” I asked.
“Let’s crack them open and let the cat eat them.” George
said.
“No way. We’ve got to get rid of the evidence.” Pastor
Dickey chimed in. “Tim can never know about any of this.”
“He’s right. The cat could puke up a chicken embryo and we’d
be clucked.”
Trash pick-up was in two days, and the bagged and discarded
eggs would be long gone before Tim’s return.
With a gleam in his eye and a giggle on his lips Dickey turned to go
home. “Remember, we will never speak of this incident again.” Nothing I like more than having a minister as my partner in crime.
A few days later Molly showed up at our house again. “I went
to gather eggs and in the chicken yard was a hen with blood all over her head
and the other chickens pecking at her. Do you know what we should do?”
“Drink?” I replied.
Molly was worried we failed again. “I saw some medicine in
the house marked for cannibalism use on chickens.”
“I knew it. Those damn chickens ARE trying to eat me. It’s
payback for all the chicken fingers I’ve eaten over the years. I’m never going
near them again.”
“Calm down, Chicken Little,” George said. “The sky isn’t
falling, and while they may eat each other, I don’t think they’re interested in
your chicken legs.”
“This is no time to discuss my spindly legs. We need to take
action before we have a massacre on our hands. First they kill one of their
own, get a taste of that yummy chicken breast and before morning it will be
full on chicken Armageddon.”
“I don’t think I can catch a chicken and apply the
medicine.” Molly stated far more calmly than I preferred. What we needed was
more hysterics…I needed moral craziness support.
George was in thinking mode… I could see in his eyes he was
driving the intellectual train, while I stayed on the tilt-a-whirl.
“Here’s what we’ll do.” George stated. “Tim will be home in
less than 24 hours. I know he's dealt with this issue before; so we leave
them alone and let him handle it.”
“What if the chicken dies before he gets home?” I asked.
“We have no idea what we’re doing. I think it’s better left
for Tim.”
Molly nodded agreement and then added, “If the chicken dies,
let’s make a deal to blame Dickey.”
She was asking us to enter into a pack against a man of
God. Tom Brady facing the Commissioner
of Football and receiving a four game suspension punishment was nothing
compared to facing God and his punishment for wrongs against one of his chosen.
Brady’s punishment will probably be overturned. Would God be so forgiving to us
in Chicken-gate?
I looked at George and knew we were thinking the same thing.
“Deal.”
