Slim Randles' Home Country
Perks and pecks at the day's dawning
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[April
06, 2013]
Irma has it
figured out. She's a bona fide, egg-laying member of the "Production
Red" hen sorority and she knows her rights. |
This is really remarkable when you consider that the braincase of
your average barnyard chicken is wedged between some feathers and
those big expressionless eyes and has about the same capacity for
rational thought as that of an amoeba. But somehow this hen of mine
has figured it out. The sunlight triggers it, I believe.
Sequential logic.
When the daylight comes enough to make out the outline of the
house, Gunsil (the rooster) starts telling the world how wonderful
he is. When the sun hits the house, The Guy Who Takes Away the Eggs
(aka T.G.W.T.A.T.E.) comes out and puts food in the dish. When it
gets dark, it’s time to go back in the henhouse, better known as
"Home."
Irma doesn't get fooled by artificiality the way Gunsil does.
We've learned that a midnight visit to the bathroom is fine as long
as you don't turn on the light. If the light switch goes on, out
comes Gunsil from his henpecked existence, and he begins telling the
world it's time to get up and start laying.
If a person were to have several cups of coffee before bedtime,
the result the next morning is a bedraggled, exhausted, confused
rooster who is mad enough to want to whip the neighbor's German
shepherd.
It's almost worth it.
[to top of second
column] |
But Irma isn't fooled by light coming through the bathroom
window. She waits for the real thing. Daylight. The sun. The sun's
rays slowly slide down the walls of the house until they hit the
bricks of the patio. When the bricks are illuminated by the morning
light, she waits exactly 17 seconds for The Guy Who Takes Away the
Eggs to emerge with scratch-and-laying mash. Then she goes to work.
Buoyed by a sense of feminine assertiveness and egged on by an
empty crop, she strides across the yard, across the patio bricks, up
to the very gates of "House" itself, the sliding glass doors. Then
Irma pecks at the glass until T.G.W.T.A.T.E. emerges with breakfast.
There aren't a lot of perks to being a chicken. One must insist
on the few one has.
[Text from file received from Slim Randles]
Brought to you by the award-winning book "Home Country,"
available at
http://nmsantos.com/Books/Home/Home.html.
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