a (revised) tale of two chickens

The Story of the Chickens, As Remembered and Told by Rhianna:


Once when I was younger, my class took a trip to Butterfield Acres, a small farm where young'uns could learn about animals and nature and so on. During one part of the trip, we were shown a bunch of chicken eggs, and informed that these eggs had been fertilized. That is, if one were to keep them in a warm place, they would hatch into baby chickens of unbearably cute aspect. This part of the tour ended with myself sneaking one of these magical eggs into my pocket.

During the rest of the trip, I tried to keep the egg warm with scraps of fabric stolen from a quilting demonstration, and also a fresh-baked biscuit from the kitchen. (Oh, the larceny! I think this moment pinpoints my love of theft.) After a long, precarious day of not smashing my pocket against things, I arrived home to show my parents the egg I had been "given". We made a fabric shoebox nest, placed it under a lamp, and some weeks later it hatched into the fluffiest little chick you ever did see.

However then my sister, Samantha, needed a chick as well, so my Dad bought her one. We then had a great deal of adorable times until the chickens got older and started making terrible messes, at which time they were donated back to Butterfield Acres. Which is the circle of life.


The Story of the Chickens, As Only Recently Told to Me by My Dad (not verbatim):

Later that evening, after you had gone to bed, I decided to "candle" the egg to see if it was really fertilized. (Procedure consisted of holding the egg over a bright light to view lack of fetus). The next day I phoned a commercial chicken hatchery and told them the heartbreaking story of my tiny daughter, and asked to buy an egg that was near hatching. They told me I needed a license, and the smallest unit of chickens available was 144. I said, "Yes, but didn't I tell you about the little girl with her heart set on a baby chicken?" After much pleading of this sort, the woman said, "We open at six. Be here at 5:45, come around to the back door, and knock three times."

I then threw out your egg, which was rotten, and replaced it with the egg just about to hatch. You wanted to know why the egg had changed colour, and I told you it was because of exposure to the air when the shell started breaking, which you seemed to buy.

However I didn't count on your sister being jealous of the chick. So I had to call back and say, "Hey, did I tell you I have another small daughter?"

"Not you again....come by early...knock three times".

However the only food we could buy came in industrial size bags, and I couldn't heartbreaking story my way out of it. That bag of food was about 100 times the size of the chick.



Lessons We Can Learn From This:

1. Stealing is awesome and always ends well.
2. My dad is just about the cutest dad ever.
3. Commercial chicken farms seem to have suspiciously well set-up systems in place for illegal egg dealing.
4. Some truths are so awful they apparently cannot be confronted until your daughter is 27.