Hold the chicken

I was stopped at a light on Center Street in Auburn one afternoon not long ago when a long, flatbed truck rolled up next to me. Strapped down on that bed were countless stacks of crates, end-to-end and side-by-side. Inside the crates were chickens, crammed in like socks in drawer that’s too small to hold them all. The birds were mashed together in a great big heap of poultry — tons of feathers and beaks rolling through the city. And eyes. So many eyes. The chickens didn’t make any sound at all, that I could hear, but the eyes that stared out on the world were very loud indeed. It wasn’t terror, I don’t think, or pain. It was a universally flat gaze of a creature who has never known anything but misery and doesn’t expect anything more. Probably for the best – mashed together like they were, the birds could not have kicked their feet or fluttered their feathers to express their displeasure. Respiration was probably the height of activity for animals in such close quarters. Those thousands of eyes just looked upon me and seemed to say: “Yup. This is it for us. This is as good as it gets. Enjoy your Chicken McNuggets, my friend.”

Man, that was a long light. It occurred to me that if dogs were treated that way and rolled through the city, the uproar would be immediate and fierce. Cats too, or even birds of a different feather. But these were dinner birds, and nobody seemed to notice at all. What the chicken haulers were doing was completely legal, presumably, considering the way the animals were on display that afternoon. And if that kind of animal treatment is considered A-OK, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to see what the egg farm in Turner did with their birds to warrant $35,000 in fines. Fines are good, it hits them where it counts. But you have to wonder how things will go in the Karmic afterlife when chickens rule the world and plant operators are left pecking for food in the bottom of the cage.

Should have bought it

So, I was in Marden’s just casually looking over a computer monitor set up for sale. Flat screen, 19 inches, a nice unit all in all. While I was at it, an older woman sprang Ninja-like out of nowhere. I don’t know if she’d been hiding in a rack of men’s clothing or hanging from the ceiling tiles. One moment she was not there, the next moment she very much was. I didn’t want the monitor, the woman insisted. Not that one. She pointed to a smaller monitor nearby. That was the better bargain. Yes, she said. That was the monitor I wanted.

Baffled, I went on my way. Later, I saw the woman, perhaps 75 years old, walking out of the store with the 19-inch flat screen I had been originally looking at. The aging Ninja had effectively distracted me away from the item and taken it for herself. And that, my friends, is what is known as getting taken to school.

It’s never too early to begin Scrooging

Auburn Manager Glenn Aho thinks it would be a fine idea to slap business restrictions on the home Christmas show on Vista Drive. Now where the hell can I go to see that many lights all in one place? Oh, right. Casino.

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