Democracy in a Hen House?

Democracy in a Hen House?

“What in the hell is the matter with those chickens? They’re making a lot of racket out there.” My friend, Jay Skulking Bushwhack, was over so I had paused for the cause, while we stood outside the workshop where I had been hammering away, and shot the bull.

Jay is athletic and a supporter of the Republican Party; he’s not the sharpest tool in the shop, but what he lacks in mental acuity, he more than makes up for with his loquacious mouth. 

“No sense in staying quiet when they’s so much that needs to be said,” Jay would explain. “I don’t know why liberals have their panties in a bunch at our new president, jus’ ‘cause he goes on vacation every weekend. You know, being the prez is not an easy job.”

“True, signing all of those executive orders and sending out tweets can be taxing,” I responded neutrally. I was not going to get into it with Jay. Arguing with a 45 supporter was like arguing with a concrete wall: No matter what you say, you are not going to get through to him or her. The hers are the worst. 

“Now don’t you start with the taxes thing, too. I’m sick of hearing about our president’s tax returns. We never saw Obama’s birth certificate-why should this be any different? Say, what’s wrong with that chicken? She’s running around like her head is chopped off,” Jay went on.

Well, females will get a little excited, at times. How do you argue with someone who apparently likes it when the prez plays rough? Any woman who would support such a vile misogynist, is in need of therapy. Female 45 supporters make the Stepford Wives look like an offshoot of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Peering into the yard, I recognized the squawking one as Donna. I might have known.  She was a burnished-orange thing, fat and saucy, and usually the one doing the bullying, not the other way around.

Indeed, whatever she had done to incur the wrath of the flock, the game was on. Even as we watched, a mottled red-hen flew right at fat Donna, wings gyrating and beak flashing. The besieged turned her back and exited from the corner she had ended up in, right down the sideline, so to speak, to wind up in the next corner on the track, protesting silently, for fear of losing her prize at such antisocial behavior. 

The red hen left off the chase, only to tag-team one of the white birds, who took up the pursuit with such an enthusiasm, as to incite another round of excited squawking from the rest of the flock. 

“She’s got something in her mouth,” Jay observed, “and the rest appear to want some.” Leaving the yard, the embattled hen tried a new tactic and veered into the coop, where she fled to the rear echelon, bent on eluding the other girls, so as not to have to give up any of her plunder.

The maneuver failed miserably because one of the hens up above on the roost, bombed the assailed hen from above, landing squarely on top of her, startling her so badly that she reversed course, and raced back into the open area, where the other dozen girls waited, with growing enthusiasm for the entertainment at hand.

“It’s gotta be a worm!” I asserted. At that instant, the pursued sprang into the air, wings flapping furiously, protesting yet once again. “Zounds,” I exclaimed. “You’d think she’d just give the rest of ‘em a break, but she is a greedy little thing. I don’t know where she comes up with them, but she has an endless supply-look at what a porker she is!”

“Tough titties,” Jay went on. “Let the rest of them find their own worms. This ain’t socialism-it’s democracy.”

Democracy in a hen house? 

As if in answer to his words, Donna caught a break in the action, tilted her head back and gulped that worm right down, smacking her beak appreciatively. 

Jay nodded approvingly. 

“She who hesitates, is lost,” he observed.

Speaking of being lost, it occurred to me that I had the opportunity here to find out, once and for all, just what a 45-supporter thought about Congress passing the new health-care act. Did it bother him that 24 million people were shoved under the bus in such a barbaric fashion?

“Whatever you’re babbling on about, you just don’t get it.” Jay explained, somewhat exasperated. “Under Obama, I had to go out and get health insurance, even though there wasn’t nothin’ wrong with me that a good fishin’ trip wouldn’t cure. My Man in the WHITE House knows what’s up with that.”

“Yeah, OK, got it.” And I did.

Did I say “concrete wall?” Granite would be more like it.