So about that dead chicken

Well, I fear that I generated a lot of interest about the dead chicken and the story just isn't going to live up to your expectations. I'll try and make this as interesting as possible...

So, last week, just as the boy was starting to feel better and I wasn't yet sick, we had to get out of the house. We couldn't play with the neighbor across the street, because I was afraid that the boy would make her sick still. I didn't want to take him to the children's museum because I'd be pissed if I knew that someone took their recently vomiting child out in public where they knew other kids would be*. The boy needed to burn off some energy and I was still nursing my hurt back. So I packed us up and we went to a local kitschy shopping place that I figured would be relatively deserted on a Tuesday afternoon. I was right.

We got out of the car and I put the boy in his harness (It is not mean! I don't care what you say!). Where to walk? Lots of shade and paths, so wherever is fine. But look! Chickens! Not ordinary chickens either! Cochin Chickens! All fluffy and black and neat looking.

"Honey, look! Chickens! What does a chicken say?"

"Backa! Backa!"

We walk to the chicken coup where the birds are housed. We're at the back and I try in vain to get the boy interested; his shoes have suddenly become the single most interesting thing on Earth. I drag him around the front to see how many chickens there are and the boy sees a garden hose connection and head straight for it. Who cares about poultry when you can get wet? As I try to pry him away from the questionable spigot, I see it. That's right - a dead chicken. It seriously looks like it has been pecked to death and it's head is at an odd angle on the ground. But then I realized - I don't know what a pecked-to-death chicken looks like. Surely it can't be bird flu, can it!?! (Uh, no. I haven't seen the coroners report from the autopsy, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't bird flu.) I scoop up the boy and head for the biggest store in the complex.

Me: "Hi. I don't know who takes care of the chickens, but there is a dead one in the coup."

Lady in store: "She's not dead! Ha! She's sitting on 13 eggs and is very serious about them hatching. She just looks dead!"

Yeah, that's not what I saw lady. That chicken is a doorstop.

Me: "Well, it really looks dead. The one up near the front of the cage?"

LIS: "The front of the cage? Oh, no. There must be some sort of mistake. We check them every day. Someone checked on them just a couple hours ago! Let's go look."

How did I get roped into going back to the haven of death? But I sure did go. I didn't want this woman thinking I was crazy. Someone thinking that I am over-protective because I use a Floppy Seat at the grocery? Fine, I don't care. Crazy lady who sees random dead chickens? That I can't take.

LIS: "Oh. Something got it." Eyes me questioningly. "Perhaps my husband already knows and hasn't been able to do anything yet."

Me: "I'm so sorry."

LIS: "Me, too!" Another inquisitive and uncomfortable look.

Me: "Hopefully you will have a bunch of chicks from the hen in the back soon."

Let me say, I totally didn't kill the chicken. And I kind of resent that the woman - who saw me there with a little kid - even thought that I might have done anything sinister. J asked if the lady gave me anything for free for telling her about the chicken. He thinks that there should be some sort of international "Dead Chicken Reporting Award" where free things are bestowed upon people who do this particular good deed. The lady in the store doesn't seem to agree.

*Yeah, I know. People do this all the time, their sick little rug-rats out in public leaving germs on anything and everything. But this is one of those things that I chose to not think about. We'd never get out of the house if I thought about it more. Then you'd be seeing some sort of crazy-mother story about me on the Today Show - Maybe I'd be Katie Couric's last big story! Wouldn't that be cool? - and you would all deny you ever knew me. Out we go, then.