Why The Chicken Crossed The Road (No, Seriously)
Back when I was 15, like all hot blooded teenagers (this has nothing sadly to do with being hot blooded) I was learning how to drive. Between my father’s obvious terror at being in the front seat of a car driven by his daughter and my mother’s out and out refusal to drive with me, I was stuck researching other options so that I may actually get approved for a driver’s license sometime in the next 14 years.
The other options came in the form of my over 18 years old friends, whom I was allowed to drive with (they’ve since changed this law in Illinois, I believe). By nature of being invincibly 18 AND having oodles of marijuana on board (them, not me. I was too much a Nervous Nelly for that. Well. Sort of. But that’s another story), they didn’t mind driving with me.
So one day, I was out and about with my friend Audrey and she was patiently sitting shotgun as we drove out in the more rural areas surrounding my town. I figured that this was probably safest alternative, considering that there was little to no traffic for me to hit with my car.
Always known for my wanderlust, we drove aimlessly around for ages (or perhaps 15 minutes). On one of the winding roads, just as you came over a hill was a farm. And on that farm they had some chickens. And those chickens saw fit to cross this road at THE EXACT MOMENT I DROVE UP THE HILL. It was a blind hill, so I couldn’t see anything on the other side of it.
The next thing I knew, I ran over not one, not two, but an entire flock of chickens. My car was awash in chicken feathers and poo. And I began screaming along with the poor chickens.
I slammed on the brakes and turned to Audrey, tears pouring out of my eyes and she grimly informed me that I needed to go back and put any of the chickens that weren’t dead out of their misery. This was an even more horrifying prospect to me, who now just wanted to climb back in bed and wrap myself in the comfort of a large doobie.
I liked chickens, I did! I thought they were cute and sweet (I obviously didn’t KNOW any chickens) and I was happy to have them around. Opossums, however, I would have happily run down with my car, bike or even my boot clad feet. They were mean, they were nasty, and I hated them. But chickens! My heart shattered loudly.
But no. I couldn’t sit their daydreaming while there were more chickens to maim! I executed a 14 point turn and went back in my Car of Doom, crying and blubbering on and found the chickens. Well, some of them. Thankfully (I suppose) for my guilt-ridden conscience the ones that were dead were, in fact, dead, and the ones that weren’t had moved on to less dangerous car infested pastures.
As we drove away, still crying like a baby, Audrey looked at me and said, “Why did the chickens cross the road? TO GET RUN OVER BY BECKY.”
I was highly unamused.
That was the greatest story that I have read in awhile. Thanks for the laugh! NCLM
Oh, I have so many stories of animals I hit with my car, and animals that hit me…not quite on the level of so many chickens at one time though.
Hmmm… chickens is a new one. I’ve heard of people hitting, oposums, raccoons, squirls, bunnies, and even cats and dogs but never chickens… perhaps that farmer needed to keep them a little closer to home!!
Omg. Go back and put them out of their misery… to funny!
Snort! Dumb chickens.
Everyone needs a friend like Audrey! Did you take home the dead ones for dinner?
I once hit ONE wild turkey and the feathers were nearly blinding. I cannot imagine a flock.
It is an entertaining story in retrospect. You can tell your boys when they start to drive. I am sure they will love it.
what an adventurous LIFE!
chickenkiller
I think you had a much more interesting teenagerhood than I did.
Do you still hear the chickens screaming?
Am I the only one who started this story with the banjo song from Deliverance in their heads, then ended it with the General Lee horn from Dukes of Hazzard as Becky the Chicken Killer (almost like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, except with more feathers and less blood) drove off?
Probably. But not anymore.
ha ha ha haahahah…ha ha ha
Brad has a similar story from high school, except someone else was driving and there were horses involved. Yes, horses.
Wow.
I ran two chicks over with my bike when I was in 2nd grade and I was so scared that I left the scene of the crime and ran all the way home and hid in the closet.
Needless to say I was busted and for months, I didn’t want to eat chicken.
hahahahaha! Hilarious!
I remember a pregnant lady coming into work one day telling how she had hit a deer on the way in and she had to put it out of its misery. With an axe. Needless to say, she was a bit disturbed by the whole thing.
Ok Becky, I was not sure if I should laugh or cry until I got to the end. I laughed and then read the story to my friend.
I hot a raccoon once, I killed him and I cried all the way home and then cried the rest of the night. I still get sad when I think about the poor Raccoon but my husband still laughs.
Aunt Becky, don’t EVER come to my town if you have chicken hit and run issues. Seariously, we are in the chicken capitol of the world (joy o joy) and I constantly hit reminants of poultry on the roads. The live chickens usually bolt away from traffic, but occasionally in the middle of town there will be one clucking thru a cross-walk.
Ahh- the south!
Was it your car or Audrey’s?
I will give you some credit for feeling bad for killing the chickens! I like them too. I had a pet chicken when I was a kid.
I still laughed though.
This stuff is why I have a love/hate relationship with living in the midwest!
We ran into a cow once (E did, not me). I’m serious. And a piglet with a milk jug stuck over its head ran into my mother’s VW when I was younger. Ahh, the rigors of city life.
Oh dude. I almost ran over a shit ton of chickens in my bad ass 85 Ford Escort with the virtual reality seat. My friend, Alicia, and I then decided that we needed to catch the chickens so that we could ride around with them in the backseat blasting that one song <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfJe8hQ8ha0″<How Bizarre. We never actually did that, but we wanted to. And it was fucking hilarious when we were high and would tell people about it. Heh.
And one of my uncles convinced my aunt that there were chickens living outside her bedroom window at night when she was a kid. He’d wait for her to fall asleep and then he’d sneak out and go under her bedroom window and make chicken noises. For YEARS she thought there were chickens out there that would only come out at night. We now buy her chicken paraphernalia whenever we get a chance.
Crap. That should be How Bizarre. I hate when I fuck up HTML code with my dyslexia.
here a chick there a chick everywhere a chick bit…and that’s the real story of where chicken mc.nuggets come from, they came from Aunt McBecky:)
That would have stopped me from learning to drive! And going back to kill the half-dead chickens? No. Way.
HA! It’s a perfect story, involving a teenager, a doobie, a car, an abandoned field, and some dead chickens. I seriously think you should write a country song about that.
Down here in Georgia, we’d call that a lucky day.
I mean seriously, I commend you on that roadkill.
So, what’d they taste like?
A wonderful story. I’ve finally broke out of my depression bubble and wandered back into the blogosphere… and who better to welcome myself back with than my wonderful Aunt Becky??? 🙂
Oh man, that had to be f’ing hideous! I hit a cat once, ran off the road trying to miss a rabbit. And then I chased a cat off my property and it ran into the road only to be hit by a taxi and die at the end of my driveway. It was really bad. My daughter was about 3 and kept saying, “You killed the cat.”
And then the garbage men took the cat away and the neighbor started looking for it and wanted it back to see if it was poisoned. And I just kept on telling lies about how I didn’t know anything about what happened. ACK.
didn’t martha stewart once run over some baby chicks because she didn’t “need” them anymore, or they weren’t cute enough, or something?
That is the funniest story I have ever heard!! I have tears in my eyes!!
I think that is something that would only happen to someone trying to learn to drive . . .
Honey, I know I already commented on this hilarious post, but I opened up one of the endless e-mails my mother forwards me from her old cronies, and this is what was there. I laughed so hard I almost peed not because of this e-mail but because of your post and the unbelieveable coincidence that I would get a fucking chicken crossing the road e-mail TODAY. I just had to come back. Sorry it’s so long.
“Burning question and several answers!!!”
Why did the chicken cross the road?
BARACK OBAMA:
The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a CHANGE! The chicken wanted CHANGE!
JOHN MC CAIN:
My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.
HILLARY CLINTON:
When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure — right from Day One! — that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn’t about me…….
DR. PHIL:
The problem we have here is that this chicken won’t realize that he must first deal with the problem on ‘THIS’ side of the road before it goes after the problem on the ‘OTHER SIDE’ of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he’s acting by not taking on his ‘CURRENT’ problems before adding ‘NEW’ problems.
OPRAH:
Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad.
So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I’m going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.
GEORGE W. BUSH:
We don’t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.
COLIN POWELL:
Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road…
ANDERSON COOPER – CNN:
We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.
JOHN KERRY:
Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken’s intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.
NANCY GRACE:
That chicken crossed the road because he’s GUILTY! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.
PAT BUCHANAN:
To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.
MARTHA STEWART:
No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer’s Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.
DR SEUSS:
Did the chicken cross the road?
Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the
chicken crossed the road, but
why it crossed I’ve not been told.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY:
To die in the rain. Alone.
JERRY FALWELL:
Because the chicken was gay! Can’t you people see the plain truth?’
That’s why they call it the ‘other side.’ Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media white washes with seemingly harmless phrases like ‘the other side. That chicken should not be crossing the road. It’s as plain and as simple as that.
GRANDPA:
In my day we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.
BARBARA WALTERS:
Isn’t that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its life long dream of crossing the road.
ARISTOTLE:
It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.
JOHN LENNON:
Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.
BILL GATES:
I have just released eChicken2007, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your check book. Internet Explorer is an integral part of the Chicken. This new platform is much more stable and will never cra…#@&&^(C% ……..reboot.
ALBERT EINSTEIN:
Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?
BILL CLINTON:
I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken?
AL GORE:
I invented the chicken!
COLONEL SANDERS:
Did I miss one?
DICK CHENEY:
Where’s my gun?
AL SHARPTON:
Why are all the chickens white?
We need some black chickens.
AUDREY: To get run over by Becky! (Of course I added that.)
Can you believe this shit? Too damn perfect, Mama.
I am dying laughing over here! Not at you…with you 🙂
Oh & I, too, was disappointed that Sam left Smith’s soooo fine ass! But, I am equally surprised that she kept him around as long as she did! 🙂
SO SO SO SO SO FREAKIN’ HILARIOUS. I remember crying when I hit a bird and it wasn’t even my fault, the damn thing flew right into my car, I can’t imagine running over a flock of chickens.
Great story.
OMG I’d have been completely blubbering hysterically! How crazy!
It’s funny that you were unamused, because this sure amused me… up until the point where I remembered that I ran over a squirrel once when I was learning to drive.
Holy crap that had me rolling with laughter!
I think the worst bird related car incident we had was when an owl flew into the car when Kim was driving and got stuck in the front of the car. She screamed…kept driving. Gets to her destination and realises the owl is still there. Stuck to her car.
So glad I wasn’t there to scrape it off the bumper bar *shudders*
But seriously. In your situation…I would have cracked the same freaking joke that Audrey did. Sorry.
I would have totally freaked out.
My chickens arrive on July 4th and you are not allowed to drive down my road any time soon ya hear!
I’m sorry but that is funny. Although, the comment that had about a zillion people’s funny answers was only funny for about the first five. Then I get bored and start to drink. And no one wants that. Especially you because you CAN’T DRINK. Sorry we’re trying not to mention that.
LOL!!! Poor guys. I would have cried too.
I don’t know what’s funnnier though…this post or the comments! There are some f’in weird stories on here!!! LOL!
Here it’s the armadillos. They just sit there in the road in the dark of night waiting for you like rocks with legs they refuse to move.
I ran over a squirrel once. I was on my way to work and I freaked out. I managed to get to work and into the building but then I fainted about 5 minutes later. I like animals more than people.