Rooster today, feather duster tomorrow

Back in August, I wrote about a chicken who adopted us. She laid us a few eggs, and though they were tiny, we had dreams of an endless free supply. We bought some chicken feed, named our girl Henny Penny— I know, we could have come up with something more original— but, oh well, we’re lazy and unimaginative. Alas, Henny deserted us, or so we thought. We gave the feed to a neighbor and resumed buying our eggs.

When the chicken finally returned, she brought her Romeo. “How cute is that?” we asked, for about one day. Then we thought about how to get rid of them. When Henny Penny was single, we liked her, but when he came along, they assumed nuisance status quickly. In the first place, they pooped everywhere; on the tables, chairs, exercise equipment, bicycles and in the clothes basket. Worse yet, in his quest for a place to roost, Romeo jumped up on the clothes pole, squawking bloody murder, while girlfriend squealed from the ground. “Get them out of there,” I shrieked, adding to the cacophony, “before they shit on the clothes.”

Worse than strewing scat everywhere is crowing. A common misconception about roosters is that they only crow at dawn. Not true: they crow any old time. We don’t mind the daytime noise pollution, but at 4:30 or 5 AM, the rooster croaks his unlovely tune right into our bedroom. Furthermore, he doesn’t say cock-a-doodle-do: he says, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh! something like a little old hard-of-hearing man might.

“Where’s my Uzi when I need it?” I ask Jack. Recently, I ran outside in my underpants and tee shirt before 5 AM with one thought on my mind: kill the rooster. I’ve never thought of myself as a killer, but I know in my heart that if I could only catch that critter, I’d- never mind—I never will.

People say, “Grab him by the neck and swing him around. It only takes a few swings.” I don’t think so. What would I do with him if I caught him? Certainly not kill him, pluck him and eat him. I like my chicken dead and cut up, or whole, without feathers or other messy parts.

Jack and Buddha have been on a campaign to keep the culprit from roosting in the tree beside our bedroom window. We’re thinking of doing a remake of Emperor of the North, with Jack as Earnest Borgnine, and the rooster as Lee Marvin. Oh wait, didn’t Lee Marvin win?