Warning: This column contains extremely juvenile acronymetic language and should therefore not be read by anyone over the age of six. Seriously.
Last week our little homestead came down with a mild case of drama when it was observed that one of our chickens was escaping its fenced-in chicken area by an unknown route.
My wife was working in the garden when out of nowhere a chicken popped up behind her.
She came inside to tell me about it (perfect timing because it was just after breakfast and I was getting a bit peckish and I was hoping to ask her to make me a snack to ward off the “hungies” til lunch), but before I could vocalize my snack request she dropped the curious caper on me and asked me to keep my eyes open.
So, being the proactive, task-completing household-chore junky that I am, I immediately jumped at the opportunity to tackle the enigma of the disappearing domesticus.
I plopped myself down at the kitchen table to begin mapping out a path to success for operation Chicken Chase! (And perhaps have a hotdog to quell my grumbling stomach.)
I decided I would do such a great job, word would spread like Tlellian gossip.
I would probably be asked by many people to come and solve their escaping chicken problems. It was most likely to be very big business.
Maybe there would even be a parade in my honour one day with lots of large floating balloons in my likeness and vehicles decorated with scenes of chickens escaping fenced-in areas.
Schools would close, banks would give everyone free money! My name would be sung from the mountaintops by both local and non-local choral groups and arrangements!
But first I needed a name.
Being a fan of wordplay, I tried to come up with a clever acronym for the adventure. Unfortunately, all I came up with was: Chris Has Ideally Caught Knowledge Equably Noteworthy to Searching Questionably Unfixed Avian Doors, or C.H.I.C.K.E.N. S.Q.U.A.D.!
Although not my best work, everything else I came up with was either rude, lewd or ribald. And I felt this caught not only the depth of my commitment to the case, but also the frivolous complexity of the entire endeavor.
Secondly, I decided to do some research about chickens and how they have historically conspired to escape fenced-in areas similar to mine because believe it or not, all I know about chickens is that they are avid tunnelers and very, very persuasive after any type of clear alcohol.
After some failed attempts, I did manage to find out some pretty cool chicken facts that kept me entertained for the better part of the morning. This led to some sports highlights, YouTube videos about boating in Florida, and a Wikipedia article about Stonehenge that was very interesting.
A little after lunch and a few more hotdogs, my wife came back in to tell me that she’d solved the problem (rude!) while I was inside surfing the net and stuffing hot dogs in my face (her exact words).
And although she’s totally right, I still think I deserve some credit for at least trying to tackle the problem, even though I didn’t really.
And it’s a good thing I ate those hotdogs because I wasn’t that hungry anymore and I was pretty sure my wife wasn’t too enthusiastic about making that snack for me any time soon.