Out of Gas!

Rather than bore you with the mundane details of my somewhat boring conservative life, I thought I would present ANOTHER "Best of Senitram" where I take something from back in the day that I had time to work on the column and re-print it. Or re-post it, if that's more appropriate?

James writes:

Hello Bob! I like chickens. What should I do?

Dear James:

Glad you asked, I've been waiting years for someone to ask me about chickens. As a young adult, I lived on a southern patch of land in the outskirts of Omaha where we grew asparagus, apples, gooseberries, and chickens.

It was my job to care for the chickens. Every morning I gave them fresh water in a big round metal tub thing, I dumped a couple of handfuls of chicken feed into their trough, and I collected the eggs. On weekends I put new hay in the coupe. They were like babies to me and I loved them.

That's the job description. This is what actually happens. I open the door, only to fight off six or seven chickens who simultaneously try to run out of the coupe when I enter to get the water tub thing. One always gets out. At first you try to shoo them in the door. But it never works!

Why? Because chickens are so God-damn stupid that if you put a chicken behind a fence that's four feet long, then you put food on the other side, she'll never figure out how to get to the food. She'll just run back and forth on one side of the fence, she'll try to knock the fence down, she'll try to jump over it. But she's just too stupid to figure it out.

So shoo-ing a chicken into a coupe door is almost impossible. If you have the opportunity, grab the son-of-a-bitch by the neck and throw it in the coupe. If she gets away when you try to grab her, kick her in like a football. If that don't work, just let her go, at best she'll get run over by a car. It's not worth being late for school over.

Now I've filled the tub thingy and its time to go back in...a chicken runs loose and it starts all over again.

Now it's time to feed. Our feeder was "V" shapped tube. The food goes in the bottom, the chicken stands on top the edge and eats. Only instead of standing on one side and reaching in for food. Chickens have a tendency to put on foot of each side of the "V" and peck in the bottom to get the food. She's kind of spread eagle, leaning forward, like a cheap date on a Saturday night.

There's one more thing, chickens poop while they eat. So they are pooping right into the feeder, while they eat. Then to make matters worse some times they walk in one direction, pooping and eating; then turn around and walk the other direction, eating and pooping. THEY EAT THEIR OWN POOP WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING IT!

Collecting eggs was no picnic; they pecked at your hands when you reached in to get the eggs. It didn't really hurt, but really freaked me out the first time I did it. Sometimes if the peck hurt, I'd bitch-slap the chick just so she'd know who's boss. That usually lead to a more severe pecking next time.

One day my dog Bacchus (1/2 German Shepard, 1/2 Alaskan Huskie), was crazy for playing, and one chicken really pecked the shit out of my hand. So I grabbed that chick by the neck and threw it out of the coupe. Bacchus had a hey-day chasin' that chick around the yard.

Then it gave out a loud cluck and dropped. Bacchus poked it with his nose and gave a sad-dog, "aaawwww," sound. I checked, she was done good and dead. So's I gives him to my Step-dad, and he cuts his head off and cleans and guts him and my Mom cooks her with Shake 'N Bake.

At dinner nobody wants to eat the chicken. They say, "...it's like eating a pet."

"Pet! Those things are bastards, I'll eat 'em, no problem." I say and I chomp on a drumstick. My family looks at me like I'm a monster.

And what did we learn from all this? Chickens are stupid, dirty, bastards, (much like Stephen Johnson) the only thing you should like about chickens, is eating them.

AND NOW YOU KNOW!

COMING NEXT: The meaning of strife!