The Chicken That Never Dies

In my opinion, EVERY SINGLE BUSINESS on the face of the earth, should offer drive-thru service.   It's not that I'm lazy.  It's that I have children... and car seats.  I don't mind putting them in their ONCE; but, that's all the fight I have in me on any given day.  However, try as I might, sometimes I have to run an errand and sometimes that errand requires us to actually get out of the car.  

Today, we had to go to the bank.  Now, they actually have a drive-thru (this branch was obviously started by another tired mother); but, I could not take advantage of it this time.  We had to go inside.  We were actually the only ones in the bank when we arrived so the kids felt it was their duty to really fill the lobby with some hustle and bustle.  They messed with the Keurig machine, kicked at one another, screamed, shoved and at some point, Annalise removed her shoes.  Ordinarily, I would have been doing my very best to keep them calm, quiet and under control.  However, this was my third trip to the bank (with kids in tow) for the very same issue so I had already decided that I really didn't care in the least what we broke or who we disturbed along the way.  That may not have been the best attitude; but, it was MY attitude.  

While I was discussing my "issue" with one of the tellers, the very nice bank manager came out to see just what was going on in the lobby.  She decided to engage the kids in a friendly light-hearted chit chat which very quickly progressed to Aidan and Adelaide enumerating the many ways in which our chickens have met their Maker.  They told her each grisly detail:  raccoon, coyote, fox, and what we can only assume to have been natural causes.  She smiled, nodded and slightly paled. 

Over the past few years, we've purchased several beautiful chickens.  There was Blanche, Shirley, Helen, Lucky, Sara, several other old lady names I can't remember and of course, good old Maude.  She's the only original chicken still with us and everyone's favorite.  "They're all dead except Maude," Aidan told her, with the air of a nostalgic World War II pilot that's seen it all and lived to tell about it. (Not true, by the way, we have managed to still keep three of them alive.)   Addie added, "She's a special kind of chicken....that NEVER dies!"  And with that, the world's greatest farmers promptly headed back to their car.

Death-Defying Maude