day sixteen: beside the white chickens*

From Jessica Fantastica:

If you had a pet chicken, what would you name it?

I’m not sure I would ever have a pet chicken because I have issues with birds. I don’t like them. I mean, I don’t mind if birds are doing bird things somewhere else, but I don’t really want them to be near me. It’s one of those things. For instance, I hate geese. They’re mean. I used to work in a cemetery (I know, but it’s not as weird as it sounds) and it’s on the river. In fact, it’s called Riverside Cemetery. None of the burial plots are on the riverbanks because that ground isn’t good for that sort of thing, but the riverbanks are overrun with those damn Canadian geese. They may be pretty to look at, but they are serious assholes. Yes, I’ve been chased by angry geese. I was also chased by a turkey once. Not at the cemetery, because why would a turkey be in the cemetery? I was chased by a turkey at a farm. It started out being all friendly-like and then it turned on me.

When I lived in Venice, I did not understand the tourists who bought seed from vendors in St. Mark’s Square to attract pigeons and get the pigeons to climb all over them, and then they’d have one of their friends take a photo of them covered in pigeons. SICK. Pigeons are aviary rats. Sometimes when I was on my way somewhere and was feeling especially annoyed by the pigeons (and pigeons are so annoying) I would chase them. REVENGE! Suck it, birds!

Also one time I was in Poland and I was spending the night at this farm and those roosters crowing at 4:30 in the morning are not kidding, and when you are jet lagged and you can’t fall asleep because you’re just not tired yet then roosters crowing at 4:30 right outside the damn window just deserve to die. In fact, if I may share something with you, here is my entire journal entry from August 5, 2001:

“Fucking roosters. Stop it already. We’re awake.”

I just read over everything I’ve written up to this point and realized that apparently birds make me hostile. As such, I would probably never have a pet chicken. But if I were to have a pet chicken, I would name it one of the following:

– Buddy the Chicken (Full name. Never just Buddy for short.)
– Camilla

Or maybe my chicken would be named Camilla but I would call it Buddy the Chicken all the time. Sort of like how my dog is named Sweet Pea and I never call her Sweet Pea. Who am I kidding? If I had a pet chicken, it wouldn’t matter what its name was, because I’d just call it Chicken all the time. “What’s up, Chicken?” Like that.

And there you go.

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^{* I really like that William Carlos Williams poem though. But then, who doesn’t?}