Wait a minute! She Did It!!!!!

Do you ever have one of those moments where you’re daydreaming, and a childhood memory drifts unexpectedly to the surface?

Ever had that happen, only the memory is from so long ago, you’re seeing it through adult eyes for the first time…and with the removal of childhood innocence and naivety, you realize not everything was as it seemed?

This happened to me today.

Back when I was about 6 or 7, my family used to own a couple of ponies. For some reason, my brother got it into his head that he wanted to learn to ride. He had a few lessons, and then my parents worked out it would be cheaper to buy a pony outright, than to ‘rent’ one from the riding school every week.

First we they bought ‘Chips’, the very definition of ‘firebrand’, and later bought ‘Patch’, the very definition of ‘docile’. (Seriously, I got kicked so hard by Chips that I thought my leg had come off…Patch needed a firecracker in each ear to move).

Well, we stabled the above ponies on a local farm. My brother and I also became friends with the farmer’s son, Jack.

As I had little interest in riding, while my brother was exercising the pony (or exorcising, in Chip’s case), Jack and I would play in the barn, doing all those “What was I thinking?” activities like jumping off the top of a 30 foot high stack of hay bales onto a hastily fabricated crash mat made of straw…the kind of things you do without thinking twice at the time, and only realize years later how easily you could have been killed.

(As an aside, I also once made a tree swing out of moldy old rope we found on the ground, that swung out over a 40 foot drop onto rocks…it’s amazing I’m still here.)

Anyway, back to my story. One of the other things we used to do was collect the eggs from around the farm. Every so often, if we’d collected a lot, the farmer would let us take some home.

Well, one day, we found a whole pile of eggs in the barn. They were under a chicken.

We took them to the farmer, who took them from us, then handed us a few back. I’ve always liked eggs, and free-range eggs that were freshly laid on the same day you eat them are the best you can get.

Anyway, after a few minutes, I noticed that one of the eggs was considerably warmer than the rest of them. Even my 6 year old brain knew what that meant. It meant “Yay! Pet Chick.”

I excitedly told everyone who’d listen. Reminding my parents a few hundred times that we could eat the others, but not the warm one.

Anyway, treating it as though is was an actual baby, I carried that egg around for the rest of the day, making sure that it stayed warm.

Finally, we drove home, and as the car pulled into the drive, my Mum said:

“Hand me those eggs while you get out of the car, or you’ll drop them.”

So, I did. Then, as I was still taking my seatbelt off, Mum walked inside…followed quickly by a reminder from me to not put the warm egg in the fridge.

Then, as I was standing in the living room, I heard a ‘crack’ from the kitched. Mum had dropped one of my eggs. The kitchen floor was covered in egg, and the middle of the mess was a tiny speck of red, about the size of your little fingernail. The egg had indeed been fertilized.

Of course, at the time, I accepted the explanation that it was an accident. After a brief (about a minute and a half) mourning period, I’d pretty much forgotten about it.

That was the memory that drifted to the surface today…and after a few minutes, as I was dipping my corndog in the mustard, I suddenly found myself thinking:

“Hey! She did that ON PURPOSE!!!! She didn’t want a baby chick to take care of, or a rooster waking her up in the mornings!!! She dropped it ON PURPOSE!!!”

What I saw as an accident turned out to be a Poultry abortion…a Chickencide!

So, to my beloved Mother:

It may have been around 20 years ago, but you murdered my chicken. I expect an apology and a replacement.

Kids? Don’t listen to your parents or believe a single word that they say…they’re all evil.