Despite all Logic

I don’t know about where you live, but the urban farming movement is alive and well in Spokane. My neighbors have a herd of rampant chickens in their backyard. When we first moved to this house it was like, “Oh cool. Look! Chickens!” and has kinda turned more into, “Oh look. There’s a chicken in (insert road, our yard, someone elses yard, on someone’s car, etc)” with a lot less enthusiasm.

Though I don’t, and likely never will have chickens of my own, I’ve learned a few things here and been forced to think about things a little differently from the whole experience. Such as:

Why did the Chicken Cross the Road? Because it damn well wanted to…and then it didn’t…and then it did…so it just stood there…

We’ve been watching the evolution of our neighbors’ chicken confinement project for about five years now. We’ve seen fences and chicken houses. And fences around chicken houses. (I know it’s called a coup, but chicken house is funnier) Yet still, when the weather is nice and the feeling is just right, they fly the chicken house…ok, coup works better here, they fly the chicken coup and take off for who knows where. They don’t. So they stand in the road until they are retrieved.

Chickens don’t lay eggs forever

I guess I’d never really thought about it. They live well passed the timeframe in their lives where they lay them. Most people apparently don’t think about this and wind up with unproductive chickens…which they usually wind up pawning off on local shelters.

I don’t have the gumption for egg collecting

While many love the idea of going out every day to collect their fresh eggs, I find myself a bit uneasy about it. The idea of walking up to a chicken like, “Yo. I’m gonna just reach under here and take your unborn child and have it for breakfast with some toast…”

Can’t do it. I just can’t.

Anyone have any experience with this? I'd love to hear your stories!

“Remember when we were kids and we’d see something like this and have that urge to run and slide?” Launie asked referring to the sheet of ice our back porch had become.

“Yeah,”

“It’s funny how being an adult changes that. Now you think about all the things that can go wrong-“

“Like compound fractures!” I cut in.

“What?” Launie’s face was almost expressionless save for a small hint of WTF?

“Haven’t you ever seen one of those? Oh my god.” I defended.

“Um,…”

“Those are the one’s where the bone breaks through!” (Fake gagging for emphasis)

Blank expression.

“Never mind.”

“You know,” he finally speaks after an eternity of WTF face, “That’s an awful big list of fears you keep adding to.”

“It is NOT….There’s not that many…is there?”

This got me thinking. Now I’m doing a mental tally.

Let’s see. Things that Creep me out…

#1  See yesterday’s post about Costco guy   

#2  People who talk about themselves in third person

Did you know there’s actually a word for this? Illeism. And oddly enough when I looked up this word it pulled up a whole bunch about someone I loathe. I suppose that’s one case for why I dislike it so much, but since I just learned that I can’t claim that it’s the reason. No, it just…weirds me out.

I don’t know why this bothers me as much as it does. Makes me want to slap the stupid right out of them, if that were really a thing…actually, if that were really a thing I’d probably have a lot of assault charges.

#3  People randomly bursting out into song

I can’t watch musicals for this very reason. I’ve been around people before who just start to sing…for no real reason. They’ll like stare right at you and the whole time I’m not sure exactly what I should be doing with my face. Do I stare back? Is that rude? If I lock eyes with them it starts to feel like a creepy serenade. Do I join in? Do I do back-up vocals? This stresses me. I look away. Why don’t they ever see how visibly uncomfortable I am?? They keep going. I ultimately will try to engage them in conversation to make them stop.

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