Why All Roosters Should Be Turned into Chicken Nuggets

Let me start this off by saying that I am a friendly person. I really am. I'd say I possess at least the same quantity of root benevolence and benign inclinations as your average feller. There are, however, some things, people, and situations in this world that spawn primal, usually irrational, and invariably abominable stirrings in me. The List isn't long, and includes items both trivial and profound. Some examples:

1. Human trafficking.
2. Being trapped in an enclosed space with a weeping infant.
3. Bullying.

Etc.

I'm not saying that all these things equal are equally nefarious or serious. Some are there because they are morally offensive, some because they are just irksome. I'll leave it up to you to decide what's important and what's not. What I am saying is that items on The List all share a certain power to frost my balmy exterior and pour gasoline on whatever glowing corner of my soul is responsible for making me hot under the collar (how's that for mixing metaphors?!?!).

What usually happens is I will witness or encounter Item X from the list, and whatever harmless thing I was doing or thinking will be hijacked by thoughts of "justice", which usually means revenge. I start scheming all kinds of schemes: grandiose fantasies of retribution, magnificent angel-of-death-like visitations of terror, or petty punishments. The unifying thread of my imaginings is that they are out of all proportion to the real demands of justice, if such demands can even objectively be said to exist.

Okay, that is my preface. So you understand when I say that I think all roosters should be made into chicken nuggets, I know I'm not being fair. Just like when I say that babies on airplanes should be stored with cargo. I know I sound mean. I know I'm being a mean little person with a mean little heart. I get it. But it's just how I feel in the moment. Let's agree that I'm a flawed, irrational creature like the rest of humanity, there are a few things that make me mad, and move on.

It's taken me two months, but I realized this morning that The List now includes:

427. Roosters crowing in the morning.

My host parents raise chickens in a coop for eggs and probably meat, and inside the coop is this one brown and jet black colored rooster. And most of the people in the village let their roosters strut around yards, or even wherever they please, the whole day. So there's a lot of cocks walking around. After the din of the morning calls to prayer subsides (about 4:30am), those roosters are awake.

And when roosters are awake, they make this awful cock-a-doodling racket asyoumighthaveheard. Each bird has its own voice and call--some high, some low, some drawn out, some staccato, some with many notes, some more of a monotonous howl. Most of them are pretty throaty. And they do it at random intervals, usually not exceeding 20 seconds. I don't know, maybe it's the randomness that puts me over the edge. When things are predictable, it's easier to tune them out, just a simple task for your brain to tut-tut it into the background. But the timing of the crowing is haphazard.

I imagine little sound-wave soldiers with helmets and parachutes being shot out of a cannon into my ear. And the little troops are holding miniature two-handed dental drills, hell-bent on shredding the fabric of my precious eardrums and those little hairs in your ear that let you hear but never grow back. And if you know me personally, you know that hearing is, like, my thing, and I am thus far more likely to react negatively to sound than to sight. Maybe this is why roosters drive me nuts. I don't know.

All I know is that when roosters crow, they do this thing where they stand up real straight and stretch out their necks while opening their horrible little beaks to let out that shrieking foulness. And every time I see this, or picture it in my mind, an imaginary samurai sword appears in my hand.

I strike. Swiftly, cleanly. One fluid, lightning motion. The stupid bird is still mid-cock-a-doodle when his cold reptilian eye registers shock at the reality that, yes, justice is finally being served and he is paying for his crimes against humanity and poultry alike.

This fantasy plays itself over and over in my head every time. In my fantasy, I don't care what happens to the bird. Let him be turned into nuggets--I could use a taste of home. All that matters is that that pointless (seriously, what is the point?), ludicrous crowing has been forever hushed. And while we're dreaming, let all roosters suffer the same fate, since they're clearly all bastards.

At this point, my rational mind might get a foothold and manage to make an objection that this is not exactly fair. Then another rooster crows. And I remember that they all beat their hens. I swear, I've seen it. A hen clucking in panic, head down, tail up in the corner of a coop, while some fancy-plumed dictatorial cock pecks at her for god-knows-what reason. Wife-beating is an unchecked reality among domestic fowl, and decapitating roosters mid-squawk seems just about fair to me. Then, chicken nuggets with barbecue sauce for all.