Ester's Feathers

Saint Peter don't you call me, cuz I can't go...

..I sold my soul to the company store. And so have you. And you. And yes, you. Actually, I'm less in a 'Oh, God, I'm a wage slave*' mode, than I am casting around looking for good songs to sing. And 16 Tons seems as current as ever, perhaps less the schlepping of coal and more just to our consumerist society.

Yesterday I made my tri-yearly trip to the feed store for feed, scratch and straw. Lugging around 50 pound bags of the shit and trying to upend them into pails is always fun, as is the dragging of the heavy, unwieldy and spiky bales of straw, leaving a long trail behind like I murdered a scarecrow and drug his body to the compost bin. At the store, they were passing out fliers advertising that in March, for purchases of $35 or more, you get 5 free chicks. Now, here's where I'm weird: I want to buy my chicks, because it's a demonstration that I value their little lives**. But this, of course, spun out into, hmmmm-ville, where in my head, I add to the flock, which results in scenes of bucolic peace and harmony. Except not so much, when you're dealing with chickens. Right now with the three of them, the order is solid and un-tested and, as such, un-enforced with any brutality. Add just one chicken to that mix and it all goes to hell. But I'm sure my brain will launch a campaign (chicks! chicks!) and I will seriously consider throwing all that accumulative knowledge out the window and bringing home two or three peeping poopers home.

* It was long ago, riding on a bus at the crack of dawn on route to a shitty temp job that I first saw the term 'wage slave', sprayed onto a parking garage wall. A blisteringly depressing snapshot.

** And yes, I'm self aware enough to recognize that I've become overly righteous where chickens are concerned. Someone has to.