It's not about the chickens.

Alright, some semi-minor stuff has happened to me recently and it has me a bit out of sorts. This is a long story, but a good one that I think you'll enjoy. You're here to enjoy the things that I write down on a virtual piece of paper, right? For enjoyment? Then lets go, and I'll try to ham fisted-ly rope it back into cycling at the end.

So I work at a bike shop. Maybe you know and maybe you don't, but dudes that work at bike shops typically don't own their own house. I get paid very well for what I do, IMT treats me and all other employees amazingly in that regard, but I'm not a stock broker in NYC and as such I rent a room in a house. The owners of said house recently went out of town for a lovely wedding in Hawaii, and I've been dog and chicken sitting. Mind you, my only duties are to make sure the dogs don't die, the chickens don't die, and the garden is green.

Cut to the chase, I get home the other night and let the dogs out (answering the age old Bow Wow Men question, "Who Let The Dogs Out?" I did. That was me). The chickens are in their coop, so no big deal. Apparently it was irrigation day because the back yard is flooded. Irrigation day is a bit hectic here

so I was glad that that responsibility was left to someone else. I later found out his title was The Water Master, which made me laugh because I've seen The Little Mermaid. Is he King Triton?

So my lady friend, whom I adore, comes over and we start watching some forgettable movie when one of the dogs comes and lays a dead chicken at my feet. Jen (lady friend) kind of loses her mind in the process of telling me that the dog just laid a dead chicken at my feet. The dog was proud, she was presenting it to me. This is what dogs do, but I'm not a dog and it wasn't cute. On the way to the backyard to investigate, there's blood all over tarnation and a dead rooster in the other dog's bed. Get to the backyard, it's a pond of blood and feathers. Like a flashback in The Shining. I know, a tougher man wouldn't even flinch, but these aren't goldfish. I eat chicken all the time but I don't get off on seeing them torn up and floating in my backyard. All 7 chickens were demolished. Dead. They were going to die eventually, sure, but now they are dead in front of me and I have to clean it up.

So I do, and that wasn't fun except that Jen is blind as a bat and kept throwing away dog toys thinking they were chicken parts. I didn't have the heart to tell her otherwise.

The next morning is trash day, and I want nothing more than to get these rotting bodies out of my life, so I take them out to the street where this old man...I'm not 100% sure that this guy wasn't a ghost...tells me that I'd have better luck throwing them away in the trash can across the street??? Then he says, "Hey, once those dogs get the bloodlust you have to put 'em down." Of course I told him that I have 7 dead chickens and I'm not about to put down two additional dogs, but I was really beside myself. What world am I living in at this point?

So how do I rope this back into something you care about? I don't. But I had a lot on my mind when I went for a ride this morning, and when I got back I felt better about the world.