I know what you're probably thinking. You're probably thinking:
Hey genius, chickens live in a 'coop', not a 'coup'.
And my response would be:
Stop being so condescending. And I know that chickens live in a coop, but these chickens are literally TRYING TO TAKE OVER MY LIFE! I'm caught in the midst of a chicken COUP!
Oh wait? You thought I was joking when I said that Rach wanted to get chickens, didn't you? Why on earth would I joke about Rach wanting to get a bunch of chickens and build a chicken coop for them in the back of our garage? Why would I joke about that?
So yes, Rach went out and bought 4 baby chickens. And yes, they sleep in our room. And yes, they really do chirp all night long. And yes, I wake up 400 times throughout the middle of the night thinking that it's morning time on a farm. And yes, I think all of this is crazy. And yes, this is a recent photo of Rach and I.
People who know and love my wife often ask me how I can stay calm in the face of one of Rach's ridiculous plans. It's quite simple, actually. As soon as Rach starts telling me about one of her hair-brain schemes (For example, I want to raise chickens in our garage so we don't have to buy eggs anymore......), I just start looking around for cameras. No, seriously. I start checking the walls, the lights, the air-conditioning vents; any place that has a good vantage point that you would be able to hide a tiny camera. Because it is hard for me to believe that Rach is unilaterally coming up with some of these hijinks. I'm convinced that I'm the subject of something along the lines of The Truman Show. I'm not even joking. Rach starts diving into her plan to raise chickens, and I immediately think of Ed Harris sitting up in his moon studio, coming up with ridiculous plot arcs just to get ratings. Rach is describing how she's going to cut a hole in the back wall of the garage, and I'm mentally retracing my childhood to make sure that none of my friends were actually actors.
Anyway, just to stay engaged in the conversation, I ask Rach, "Well what are these chickens going to eat?"
And she responds in a I-can't-believe-you-don't-know-this kind of way, "Pffft, I mean, there's more stuff that they can eat than stuff that they can't eat."
Wait? What? What does that even mean? Does that mean that these free-loading chickens are going to start digging in my refrigerator? Am I going to have to start competing with the chickens for the last piece of......steak? (Ooops, I almost said chicken). Do we just feed them hot dogs and macaroni and cheese every night like we do to the other kids? There's so many questions.
So then Rach starts telling me how she is going to--correction-- how she already cut a hole in the back of the garage so that she can build an indoor/outdoor chicken coop for LuLu, Lola, Lyla, and Sassafrass. (Yes, those are the chicken's names. There's no end to this ridiculousness. Jax wanted to name one of them Uncle B-Lo, but I'm not sure if my brother would've gotten offended or not.) Anyway, as Rach is telling me about the indoor/outdoor chicken coop, I am looking at her the same way that I would be looking at a unicorn that was telling me this same story; just utter disbelief. She senses my disbelief, so she says, "No really, I talked to your dad about it already. He thinks it's a great idea. He's going to help me build the chicken coop!"
I hear this, and the first thought that pops into my head was, "Oh, great. There are exactly TWO people on planet Earth that do NOT think this is crazy; I'm married to one of them, and I share 50% of my DNA with the other. What chance do I have to be sane? I should just give up."
But in all seriousness, she really does love these chickens (okay, maybe not in 'all seriousness'). I know she loves the chickens, because she tells me all the time. She'll say things like, "I love these chickens. Look at how cute they are. Look. Seriously, look at them. Look at them! I mean, really, have you ever seen anything so cute?" And I want to say, "Actually, YES! Yes, I have!" But I don't. I just smile, and stare at it the way that I would stare at pictures of a stranger's baby. Maybe they're a little cute right now because they're so small, but chickens don't stay cute. You don't ever see paintings of chickens playing poker. Nobody makes full calendars of cute little chickens playing with balls of yarn. They're not traditionally adorable animals.
And it throws me off when she asks me questions like, "What do you think they're thinking about right now?" And of course, my response is, "Well, if I had to guess, I'd say HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY THIRSTY THIRSTY THIRSTY THIRSTY THIRSTY THIRSTY THIRSTY THIRSTY THIRSTY THIRSTY I HAVE TO POOP POOP POOP POOP POOP POOP POOP POOP POOP POOP POOP POOP HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY!"
That's probably what they're thinking, but this is what we humans hear: CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHEEP CHIRP CHEEP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHEEP CHIRP CHEEP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHEEP CHIRP CHEEP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHEEP CHIRP CHEEP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHEEP CHIRP CHEEP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHEEP CHIRP CHEEP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHEEP CHIRP CHEEP CHIRP CHIRP!
Then, the other night, when I actually started typing up this blog, Rach was on the internet trying to figure out why LuLu has indigestion (I swear, I couldn't make this stuff up). So Mrs. Old McDonald and I had this exchange:
Rach: Oh, look, here's a lady that is having problems with her chicks too.
Me: What website is that?
Rach: It's, umm, www.backyardchickens.com
Me: Oh, really? Someone at backyardchickens.com is having problems with their chickens? How silly of me to think that this whole chicken fiasco is ludicrous.....
So there's an entire website devoted to raising chickens in your backyard. Something tells me that this is not what Al Gore had in mind when he invented the internet. But it got me to thinking: What if Rach is on to something? What if the whole world really has gone crazy? What if our economic system DOES collapse in the next five years and we're forced to live off of the land? Maybe we SHOULD take steps to be prepared. Maybe owning chickens in our backyard is the LEAST crazy thing that I could do. Now if you'll excuse me, Rach and I are going to look at a goat that we found on craigslist. Isn't she the cutest thing you've ever seen?
