photo by macwagen on flickr
Yesterday I rode the J-Church train here in San Francisco to one of my favorite cafes, and there was a scruffy guy sitting in front of me with a chicken on his lap.
Yes, this sounds like the beginning of a joke but it’s really not. He had a chicken on his lap and the chicken had a name – which I’ve forgotten – and he said the chicken is “his baby,” going everywhere he goes.
I bet they don’t go into restaurants (unless it’s an ADA approved service chicken).
I know all this personal stuff about the chicken because he was telling a pretty young blonde girl about it and she didn’t look freaked out or anything. She was smiling and joking with him, and didn’t seem to be in the least bit concerned that the chicken might step over and poop on her lap.
I was a tad concerned the chicken might poop on his, but I reassured myself (quietly) that he’s probably figured out a way to get past that, or else he just doesn’t mind.
Because the thing is – and I speak as a person who’s had chickens, but not one who’s ever taken said chickens on a train – that it’s really difficult to teach them not to poop, unlike a puppy or a kitten.
Not that those are easy, but at least one CAN teach a puppy to only go outdoors and a kitten to use a litter box but, with a chicken or any kind of bird, really, you just kind of have a little random poop machine that discharges when it needs to, without regard to where it is or who’s company it’s in.
A chicken would poop on the Pope’s hat if that’s where it happens to be at the moment, or on a park bench, a new Corvette, the roof of a Walmart or in the cockpit of an F-18 Hornet.
A chicken would even poop on coffeesister without having read her blog first.
And to make it worse, birds (including chickens) don’t even poop easy little pellets that are simple to pick up like rabbits do. They mix their poop and pee so it’s all runny like an egg, or like me following a night of too much beer and bad tamales.
Speaking of eggs, it hadn’t occurred to me that the chicken might lay an egg on the guy’s lap, or the pretty blonde girl’s if it stepped over.
That would have been hilarious.
But the guy didn’t seem concerned about poop or eggs. He just went on telling the girl about how the chicken is his best friend and she laughed and said, “Well, that’s cool!” and I looked around for the hidden candid camera.
But really.. why not, you know? A lot of people here in San Francisco have dogs and an almost equal amount have cats, and sometimes people have other things like rats, snakes, mice, parrots and turtles.
It’s just that, when out and about, you mostly see dogs. You don’t see cats a lot, given the nature of cats and how they dislike being walked on leashes, and you almost never see the rats, snakes, mice and turtles, although I did talk to a drunk guy at a bus stop one time and he had a little snake wrapped around his wrist. He put it in his pocket when the bus came and he said, “I hope I remember it’s there and don’t sit on it like I did my last one.”
Yeah, that would suck for the snake.
You can’t really put a chicken in your pocket unless you’re a clown, in which case it’s YOUR JOB to walk around with a chicken in your pocket, so the guy yesterday had it on his lap and because of that, I learned something poignant..
I learned not to judge someone’s choice of domesticated pet, even if that species of pet happens to be served in almost every restaurant in town.
Which reminds me of how I almost complimented the guy on his chicken, because I’m very complimentary that way, but considering my compliment was going to be “Wow, she looks delicious!” I’m glad now I didn’t.
photo by usonian on flickr
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I particularly appreciated your detailed explanation on the constitution of bird poop.
We here at The Rhodester Chronicles aim to educate you youth of America, while corrupting you only a little bit.