E I E I O

"Please prove you're not a robot."  These were the instructions I received when I was trying to comment on an article.  Oh, damn.  This might be tough.  Prove I'm not a robot?   How to accomplish this weird task....  Luckily, all I was required to do was read some funky letters and type them in a box.  Whew!  It wasn't as easy as it sounds, though, because I have terrible eyesight, and my computer resolution is set to tiny, and I don't know how to change the settings to "Magoo".  I'd have probably done better if I was a robot.

This is me.  And a cow.
I'm the one on the right.

As a girl, I lived on a small farm.  I like that saying, "as a girl."  As opposed to that time I was a boy for a while?  Or a robot?  Anyway, I did grow up on a farm.  We had pigs and cows and chickens, oh my!  One of my responsibilities was collecting eggs from the chicken coop, and if you don't know, chickens are bastards.  They smell awful, they will flap their dirty wings in your face like an angry Hooter's girl, and they will peck your pretty little ten-year-old hands until they bleed.  This sounds like the beginning of every Rob Zombie movie ever made.  And if the chickens don't send you into hysterics, you can always count on the rooster.  Except for the rooster wasn't ours.  He was named Kellogg, and he belonged to Danny Smith, the crazy guy who had a "farm" next door.  

Farmer Danny in his overalls, y'all

I've never really been able to wrap my mind around Farmer Danny.  See, he was this extraordinarily friendly Mexican man, and he had changed his name from something like Juan Valdez or Jesus Gallegos (you get the picture) to Danny Smith, bought some overalls, an acre of land and a rooster, and he declared himself a farmer.  Witness protection, maybe?  His rooster was the meanest rooster in the history of ever, probably super attack guard poultry.  He seemed pretty pissed that I was messing with his harem (the rooster, not Danny), and he would launch himself at me in a flurry of feathers and talons when I went to get those eggs.  It's no wonder I hardly eat eggs today, but boy how I love me some fried chicken!  So every day when I had to get eggs, I carried a giant stick so I could defend myself from the wrath of Kellogg.  Then one day,  like every day before, I'm out with my egg basket and my rooster-smackin' stick, and again, here comes that damned ninja bird, flying straight for me.  He'd been stealthy this time, so I wasn't ready for him.  I dropped my basket and brandished my stick.  Too late!  In a tornado of red feathers, I awaited my fate, which I was sure involved the plucking out of my little eyeballs and some shredding of my face.  I squatted down, squeezed my eyes shut and threw my hands up over my head.  Suddenly, there was a loud bang.  I assumed it was my sanity giving way, and maybe it was.  But then a soft thump and silence....  I dared a peek, and there lay Kellogg, with a lot less head than he used to have.  My dad had seen the attack coming and was ready for it.  He shot that bird dead like a boss!  Thanks for looking out for me, Dad.

Watch out, roosters!  Here comes my dad.

That's pretty much it.  There's no moral to this story except maybe:  Beware of roosters.  And fried chicken is soooo good.  Kudos to my dad and to Colonel Sanders.