Negotiating with Cookies – Free Range

I’m sleeping in on Sunday morning when I hear a faint clicking sound coming down the hall toward the bedroom. Fleegle is snoring on the bed so it can’t be him. I’m contemplating a stray Chihuahua coming through Fleegle’s dog door when I look up to see Georgina, Fleegle’s chicken, loose in the house.

I nudge Fleegle awake. “Why is your chicken out of her pen?”

“Raud, she’s not an industrial chicken kept in a coop. She’s free range, her egg was brown.”

“But is she house-trained?”

“House-training is overrated.”

“Not if I’m in my bare feet.”

“But Raud, in chicken years she’s old enough to drive.”

Georgina jumps up onto the bed and starts poking at Fleegle’s fur for what, I’m afraid to imagine.

“Not poop on the bed too,” I say. “She’s gotten big fast.”

She looks out the window, sees the sun and clears her throat. Moments later the bedroom reverberates with, “Cock-a-doodle-doo.”

With palms pressed against my ears, I look at Fleegle. “So Georgina is a cockerel, not a hen.”

“Now you can appreciate my brilliance in naming George, Georgina.”

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