Roosters and Used Cars...
The other night after dinner, my oldest daughter called for a family meeting... Uh-Oh.
These meetings are happening with alarming frequency as my children get older and I become, at least in their
opinion, much more difficult to live with. Thankfully tonight my daughter only had two points to make, neither one
directly relating to me although ultimately I would end up being questioned by local authorities as a result of my
attempts to resolve my daughter's dilemma.
Her first point was to mention that her best friend Trish was in the market for a used car and would I happen to be
able to shed any light or advice on her purchasing one. As a backdrop to this conversation, I had just upgraded
vehicles and had a very reliable used car parked out beside the tool shed.
I knew her angle of course. If I sold this Trish my car then my daughter would have a ride to school. She could
graduate from the big yellow school bus to the little red Toyota thus saving herself from a lifetime of public
embarrassment and ridicule.
I thought for a moment about what clever piece of advice I could offer that would have the greatest effect of
annoying my daughter and finally said, "Tell your friend that she should never buy a used car that she would be
unable to push".
To my surprise and disappointment the comment had little effect on her and she moved on to her next point, that of
the neighbors rooster.
For those that are not familiar with my life story, I recently moved my family out to the country and we have been
subjected to all kinds of new and annoying things like well water, septic tanks, nosey good ol' boy neighbors, large
bugs and most recently a rooster that crows around five AM every morning, including Saturdays and Sundays.
My daughter could not understand why this was necessary as even us country folk have electricity and access to
alarm clocks. I explained that the rooster was not aware of this and was just doing what roosters do although I too
was growing weary of the early morning crowing.
My daughter pulled out a piece of paper from Heaven knows where, probably the same place she hides her
vegetables since she was two years old, and said she had been doing some research on the Internet and that I may
find this interesting.
I took the print out and read the following fact; Roosters cannot crow if they cannot extend their necks. Further down
the page was an advertisement for a device you could install on a roosters neck to accomplish exactly that...how
very interesting.
My daughter said the device was priced reasonably considering the effect lack of sleep was having on her school
work and most likely my production at work as was evidenced by the large amounts of macaroni and cheese we had
been eating several times a week.
I threw her one of my "watch it young lady" glares and told her that the price club had a special on Mac and Cheese
that I simply could not pass up and used the old "there's starving kids in Africa" line that has about the same effect
as my oft ignored glares these days.
I did however, tell my daughter that I was very impressed with her research and promised I would speak with the
neighbor about the crowing rooster.
Considering how much I hate talking to the neighbors, I decided my best approach to solving this problem was to
draft an official looking document, with the counties emblem and everything on it, and mail it to said neighbor
pretending to be some bureaucrat from city hall.
The document described the laws governing disturbing the peace statutes along with information on where he could
obtain the neck restraining device for the rooster in question.
A few days later a real city official arrived at my door and informed me that impersonating a city official and creating
false documents was a crime and did I care to shed any light on his current investigation into the matter.
I began to shake uncontrollably as he produced an arrest warrant and threatened to haul me off to jail.
Thankfully it was right at this moment that the neighbor's rooster crowed and woke me up from this awful dream I
was having.
I don't know if we will ever get relief from this rooster as the average life span of these annoying creatures is 12-14
years.
My stupid cat is afraid of the darn thing and refuses to eat him. I've been unable to get a clear shot at that bobbing
head of his with my son's bb gun, and although I offered to pay for the neck restraining device, my neighbor took
offense to me suggesting that we silence his pride and joys early morning wake up songs and slammed the screen
door in my face (country folk slam screen doors instead of real ones and the effect is laughable at best).
What in the heck is wrong with people out here? I must be careful though as I noticed grass growing high under my
used car parked out by the tool shed. Junk cars parked behind the house seems to be the first sign of a person
going "country" and I'm thinking mighty hard about selling my used Toyota to that girl Trish.