bad metaphor

This Saturday, I broke with my current antisocial tendencies to attend a party in the outskirts of Lawrence, solely for the purpose of seeing my friend Krissy’s pet roosters. I’ve known Krissy since middle school, way back when during my brief flirtation with rebellion, grunge rock, and Kurt Cobain memorial shirts. We were SO punk and skipped out on lunch together. No, we weren’t anorexic; lunch at our middle school just sucked. It consisted of lining up in alphabetical order, filing into the main room and receiving our state-issued sloppy joes and twice-a-week Godfather’s pizza with grace. Worst of all, the principal had installed a giant sound-sensitive stoplight in the lunchroom. If the noise level got too high (or someone sitting right next to the thing whispered something), the stoplight would turn red, and the principal and cronies would shave off precious minutes from recess time until it went back to green. Krissy and I would into the library and hide behind the stacks until lunch ended, trying not to giggle loudly enough to alert the librarian at the desk. :cool: She went to my high school and college as well, but we lost contact until earlier this year, when I ran into her at a grocery store. Over lunch one day, she seemed more excited and bubbly than usual.

“My dad’s coming up this weekend to bring me my roosters! They are great,” she said. “You’ll have to come meet them.”

I’m never very good at hiding when I think other people are crazy (re: experience with ex-boss), so I couldn’t help but ask why in the world anyone would want a rooster as a pet. The only thing my farm-ignorant self knows about roosters is that they a) serve the function of waking up people when the sun comes up, long before anyone besides farmers care to be conscious and b) they are irritable and mean. She confirmed both of these facts, insisting that in spite of these facts, they have nice soft plumage and are unique pets. At this point I learned that she has, in addition to the roosters: three cats, four bunnies and four rats. Quite the menagerie; suddenly a couple of roosters didn’t seem so random, for her at least.

Then she told me the story of how she acquired these roosters. Over the summer, her father drove to the West Coast to visit her sister; he decided to visit some extended relatives on the way back. He stopped by his brother’s farm in Idaho, in time to stop his brother from slaughtering thirteen roosters. Everyone in Idaho has too many roosters, Krissy explained, and they are constantly trying to get rid of the bothersome birds. Apparently they were too small to keep for meat so the uncle was planning on throwing their carcasses in a ditch. Krissy’s father took issue with such heartlessness and decided to save the roosters.

This is how Krissy’s father ended up loading his Saab with thirteen uncaged roosters squawking and flapping and shitting all over the interior. Now, roosters are territorial enough under normal circumstances (making them an ideal animal for fighting / gambling purposes); the stress of being crammed into a small-sized car in the middle of August, no doubt, pushed the cocks into full-blown aggression mode.

Tired of the bickering, squawking, and killing, Krissy’s father would occasionally pull over, toss a dead rooster over a fence, and keep driving. He may have even (allegedly) released some of the more, uh, “lively” chickens at a few truck stops along the way. Eventually he got to Kansas with five birds, more or less intact, though their feathers were slightly ruffled.

When he pulled into his driveway, who rushed to greet the new additions to the brood but Krissy’s mother – and their five overeager dogs. Three were summarily eaten before Krissy’s parents could secure the two remaining survivors. The dogs, punished for following their instincts, sulked away as Krissy’s parents stowed the chickens safely into a wire cage.

All was starting to look up for these desperate refugees when, because of a complaint from the neighbors, the city of Wichita told Krissy’s parents that they could not keep roosters within the city limits. Krissy’s dad called her up and asked her: “How would you like some chickens?”

Krissy: “Are they live chickens? I’m not going to eat them!”

Krissy’s dad: “No, they are pets!” From that moment on, the roosters became official members of Krissy’s family. Krissy’s dad packed up the chickens, who were no doubt thrilled to return to the Saab, and delivered them to Krissy to live happily ever after.

So I met them on Saturday night. They look exactly like the chickens from Chicken Run:

Picture those chickens in orange, looking mildly pissed off. I didn’t get to pet them because they were in their cage, surrounded by electrified fencing to keep out the skunks and various other critters lured by the smell of fat complacent bird. I still don’t know why anyone but the stubbornest Luddite would keep a rooster, but to each her own.

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