Chickens.. or Randy MUST love me

Where we live the animal ordinances still allow certain types of farm animals. This is particularly illustrated by the chicken coop in the backyard directly adjacent to our backyard and also our bedroom window.

We are no fans of chickens. Those who are fond of them are the ones who own the infernal God-made alarm clocks. The rest of us realize that the only type of snooze buttons incorporated on these unfortunate models would have to be a well aimed rock and thus we find them detestable. Trust me, after one early summer morning when you have a day off and are shrieked awake by the yodeling/crowing of not one but TWO adolescent roosters, you too would become a chicken hater. Or at least begin to love eating them so much more. Anyway...

The other day I was in my bedroom reading a book when I heard the chickens kicking up a racket. Usually during the day they are tolerably quiet so I looked out the window to see what was causing the commotion. In the neighbor's back yard were two young kids I didn't recognize and a dog that was running around the pen. I don't think these kids live there and it causes me some irritation, but its not a big deal right? Its not till these two kids go into the pen, get scared and run out leaving the coop open and letting all the chickens escape that I start to feel a rise of righteous indignation. I go into the computer room and tell Randy whats going on and we both look outside. What I see appalls me. The dog has one of the chickens in its mouth and runs round the yard shaking it. Sometimes when the dog lets go the chicken tries weakly to escape only to be grabbed up again. I begin to freak out.

Bless his heart. Randy listens to my escalating yowls a la a cow with distemper, and briskly walks outside, confronts the little kids, jumps the fence and takes the dog off the property. He then spends the next twenty minutes trying to convince these intelligently hampered children that they have done something wrong, that they shouldn't be there and need to get out of this yard and go home. Also, that they are stupid stupid little kids. He then catches all the chickens that he finds so distasteful and returns them to their coop despite pecking and flapping.

The next morning when the chickens started off a cacophony of irritation he stated that he wanted to eat them. Or at least let a dog do it.

See. That's LOVE.

(And seriously, what's up with kids these days? Is the gene pool so shallow that children upon doing something WRONG don't even have the sense to RUN anymore??? What the...? )