Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

OK. Let me just go ahead and tell you that today’s blog is totally random and that there’s no deep theological thoughts or anything useful, actually. But I am asking a question (that I know causes a lot of you to lay in your beds at night wide awake) because you REALLY need to know the answer to it. So, here ya go... why did the chicken cross the road? That’s right, “why did the chicken cross the road?” Have you ever said that? Not as some kind of philosophical question that you were posing or as part of some lame joke either. I mean, have you ever been driving down the road and actually uttered the words, “why did that chicken cross the road” because a chicken literally just crossed the road right in front of you!? It happens to me here, every time I drive down the mountain. 

Every time I go down the mountain at least 3-4 chickens will run out in front of my car (crossing the road) as I’m driving by. Everyone (except us) owns chickens here and they all just run loose. So as you're driving down the narrow dirt road you see chickens out in everyone's front yards and grazing (I know that’s not the correct term, sorry I’m from the city) along the sides of the road. But the question is, “why do they insist on darting across the road as I’m trying to drive by?” Why not just wait until I pass by, then go to the other side? Do they have a death wish or something? Or maybe they’re just stupid? Does anyone have the answer? If so, I’d really like to know.

Speaking of running across the road, I use to have this philosophy about animals running out in front of my car. I think it started after I saw that Geico commercial where the 2 squirrels (or 2 deer, I can’t remember) ran out in front of a family driving down the road in their car. And, as the driver swerved to miss the animal, it caused the car to have an accident. Then the squirrels ran behind a tree and were high five-ing each other and laughing because they had made the humans crash. Do you remember that commercial? Well as stupid as this may sound, after viewing the commercial somehow it made perfect sense to me and I totally believed that this could really be true (not the high five part, but the fact that they really are trying to make me have an accident). Why else would an animal wait until “right when I was driving by” to try and cross the street by darting out in front of me? It had to be true (the commercial). So from that point on, when animals ran out in front of me, rather than trying to swerve to miss them, I would actually try to hit them. That’s right, you heard me right, I would try to hit them. And it worked perfect. They would run out, and I would usually accelerate (rather than slam my brakes on because that’s what they wanted) and aim right for them. And swerving? I wouldn’t even consider swerving to avoid them, no way. I did this for years and I never hit anything. It was amazing. I was usually alone when I did it, but a few times some of the kids were with me and I’d have to explain my theory to them. And of course they understood that Dad was a genius (or retarded, one or the other) and never questioned me on it.

We lived in a neighborhood where almost every time I was leaving (or coming home and it was still daylight) a squirrel would run out in front of me. It was uncanny. It happened almost EVERY time. There was no other explanation other than they were doing it to try to make me have an accident by running out in front of me. It was crazy.

My philosophy of trying to hit them worked great for years. That is, until one night, when MJ and I were going out on a date. We were leaving the neighborhood, and a little squirrel ran out in front of us. So, without even thinking, I accelerated and yep, you guessed it... bump-bump. I got it with both my front and rear wheels. It was like I had run over a tiny little speed bump or something. And as it happened I knew I had totally blown it. You see, MJ is a HUGE animal lover. And in an instant I knew that this one small mistake on my part had not only ruined any chance of having a great night out with my wife, but it would also give her ammunition against me (the fact of me being an idiot, that is) for years to come. I tried to tell her that I thought that I missed it but she wasn’t buying it. I actually looked in the rear view mirror (hoping that I wouldn’t see it) but it was there. My only hope was that somebody would scrape it off the road before we had to pass by it later-on or I was gonna have to do a lot more apologizing (all over again) as we passed by it’s tiny little flattened corpse on the way home.

This was such a stupid thing for me to do. So I’m just passing the info on to all my “guy friends” so that I can save you from making the same mistake that I made. Don’t believe everything you see on the Geico commercials... they aren’t true. Trust me on this one.

Still Learning From My Mistakes,

Jim

PS- The pictures of the chickens up top are actual pictures we took today. We had to go and pick up gasoline in town and snapped these shots just so that you could see that I wasn't over-exhaggerating. And our oldest son, Michael, is visiting us here in Brazil for a couple of weeks (that's him on the far left). We went and had lunch in Curitiba with my brazilian "brother from another mother"- Victor, and his amazing family yesterday. And of course the other guy standing beside me is our son Matthew (otherwise, known as "the golden child").