There are certain people in this world who wake up every day with the preformed thought, fully articulated before their eyes are halfway open (possibly carried over from some blissful and manic dream) that, "My life is pretty good, but there's way too little chaos and confusion in it; I wonder how I could change that." Still others go through the day thinking, "Wow, my life is really chaotic and disorganized. What I'd really like to do is test the limits of my ability to cope with chaos and disorganization; I wonder how I could do that." Whatever the time of day, this is invariably followed by, "I've gotta have three cups of coffee first; this is gonna take a lot of energy!"
At the extreme end of this hypothetical chaophilic scale (people like this often make up their own words -- like this one which is a fancy and scary word meaning 'chaos loving' -- probably because the English language, like all man made institutions, is too precise and rational) are those who think, "one farm animal in the backyard of my suburban home would be just plain boring; I need at least half a dozen." When they were single, you can bet dollars to donuts they followed a natural and orderly progression from there to "I need a partner who won't mess up my chaos with his own chaos [yes, these people are usually women; sorry, but it's true]. If only I could find someone who scores high on both the 'buttoned down' and 'tolerant' indices."
Happily for them, there is a yin to their yang, the maniacs who marry the type of person who wakes up every day thinking, "what kind of crazy, chaotic activities (editor's note: plural intended) can I add to my buttoned down beloved's life today?"
As you may have suspected by now, I... am just such a yin. And Elizabeth is, well, she's the crazy chicken lady. Yes, go ahead, it's safe. Go ahead and call her Crazy Chicken Lady. It's her own term of endearment. She likes it! How crazy is that?
Let's be honest: I, myself, would probably never have gone out of my way to ensure that every morning, when I look out my back door, I see chickens. I never wanted four hamsters, either. In fact, I never wanted one hamster. Or three bunnies. A turtle with a broken shell. A used guinea pig. Four frogs. Or their crickets. Or the tadpoles who would have become even
more frogs had not one of the frogs I didn't ask for but got anyway - Scratchy (and proud of it) - hadn't been so darn vicious. What's that, you say? "I'll bet you had them anyway hahaha!" Darn right I did. I had ALL of them. (I never asked for the three bats that found their way into my house over the years, either, but that's probably nobody's fault. Probably. At least they didn't stay long.) What's next? Bees?
So, entropy being what it is - that is pretty much its definition, "it is what it is" - and overruling such things as "conservation of energy" in the conservative, orderly hierarchy of laws in my ideally conservative, well ordered universe... I have chickens. Not just one chicken. Half a dozen chickens.
At least they are out of my house now. At least they're out in the yard , where they provide an endless incentive for my three dogs to bark. A possible side benefit is that they may scare the poor little things into a heart attack, thereby giving me an excuse to say, "Quick! Call the pediatric bird cardiologist." 'Cause I like saying that (don't ask me why; I don't know). That's a triumph for a "store bought eggs" kind of guy. If you say, "dozen," I say "eggs." If my wife overhears you (and she will, because she's always looking for new "ideas"), she will say, "chickens." You say "chaos," I say "theory" ... and she says, "Yay!"
In fact, she overheard the title of my post and immediately blurted out - you guessed it - "CHAOS :D"
