Stupid Chickens

Jude and I cleaned the chicken coop today. It was sunny (finally) and 31 degrees today so we were practically out in our shorts. We took advantage of the good weather and went to clean out the chicken coop. There is nothing worse than leaving a chicken coop uncleaned all winter long and then doing it in one big haul in the spring. Ugh. Not to mention the cruelty of making your hard-working hens live in their own crap for months on end. As I was hacking away at the frozen chicken —– and sweating because of the balmy MN temperature. The chickens kept getting in my way. They had great weather and an entire outdoor yard to utilize while I was cleaning out the coop but there were a stubborn few that insisted on getting underfoot. At one point I whipped the seat off my brow and kicked at a chicken and spat out “stupid chicken!”. Then I started laughing at myself. What a redundant sentence. What is a chicken if it isn’t stupid? They may actually be the definition of stupid. Seriously.

Now I am going to embark on the next piece of my screed with a serious breach of conversation etiquette. I actually copied a piece of a conversation that I had with a friend the other day. The conversation started by me stating that lately I was feeling very mediocre. Like everything that I did and had done and become was just that, mediocre. My friend’s response was this, and I quote (verbatim): “Lol, yah, when I think of you, I think, intense, frighteningly purposeful perhaps, or loud. Mediocre is not on that list.”
Now you might be wondering what in the world this has to do with the chicken story and for one moment I actually had a brain fart and even I couldn’t remember they connection between them.
But for some reason the second after I made the absurd connection that I had just spouted out a totally redundant sentence by calling the chicken stupid I also realized that how foolish it was to be upset about the chicken being what it was and how it obviously was not going to help the situation for me to get angry with said stupid chicken. In reality the only thing that was seriously harmed was my sentence structure. This has now been moving on to a deeper revelation having to do with afore stated conversation and ultimately back to the feeling of mediocrity itself. I suddenly realized how silly the whole situation was and I laughed at myself. I realized that my friend was right. I do have plenty of flaws but mediocrity is definitely not high on the list. I did on the other hand realize that the real difficulty is that I am too intense. I actually had a conversation with my mom and sister the other day where I ended up blurting in frustration that it is hard work for me to relax. Talk about an oxymoron. Ok so honestly I didn’t think about how oxymoron-ish it was until my mom and sister pointed it out. But it’s true. It may seem totally silly that someone could actually say that it is work to relax but that is the case for me. And there is where I find myself. I actually find some way to plague myself with something (stupid chickens) just to keep some phantom of mediocrity from breathing down my neck while at the same time working at relaxing. In Minnesota language “OOOFFF DUH” talk about a merry-go-round. Feeling sick yet?

Bare bones conclusion to the story is that I am working out a “duh” moment and don’t even know where it is going yet but it has something to do with mediocrity, chickens, poop (darn potty training), intensity, flaws, silliness, revelation, redundant sentences and oxymorons.