The Freedom of Flightless Birds

I am taking a moment to pause on the chronicle of my ever-fascinating life in Virginia to write about something of great importance to me. I have been doing a lot of thinking about this and I have formed a pretty solid hypothesis on a topic I believe everybody should be a little more aware of: The Freedom of Flightless Birds.

This is not something I have been entirely silent about. It was sparked by my painful recollection of the Attack of the Waterloo Chickens (see: The Art of Procrastination) and I have discussed it at considerable length with my dear friend Kenny. I am also told that on a night during which I consumed more wine than Christ, I ranted about peacocks for a pretty lengthy amount of time (I know what you're thinking. You want to drink with me. Shoot me a line, we can probably make this happen).

Before I begin I must say this: I love animals. So before anybody gets PETA all up in here (because I am that important), I am all about the respect and protection of all living things. I've seen Ferngully. I'm not an asshole.

However, in regard to flightless birds, something is terribly wrong. I think the root of the problem is that we feel bad for them, so we overcompensate for their lack of abilities by giving them free run when, really, this is an inappropriate response. Just because they can't fly and the other birds probably make fun of them does not mean they should be allowed to wander freely in public, high-human traffic places at the possible expense of one's well being.

I am going to begin with chickens. Chickens are not that intelligent, but I am pretty sure that, as a flock, they have pretty evil motives. There are very few things more terrifying than being run at by a clucking, flapping, mass of feathery, pecking chickens. I appreciated the movie "Chicken Run" as much as the next person, and if chickens really were plump and adorable with little knit hats and endearing accents, I would probably go chill with them. But this is a gross misrepresentation of the truly terrifying chicken flock mentality.

Continuing on this thread: Wild Turkeys. There is a wild turkey in my hometown and it is HUGE. It just walks around on the sidewalk, like it fucking owns Valley Road. And they are NOT nice. I worked as a summer camp counselor and we took a field trip to a lake. There were wild turkeys roaming around ALL OVER. There were also signs posted everywhere about keeping one's distance from these bird-demons. There have been few experiences in my life as stressful as keeping thirty nine-year-olds away from a group of wild turkeys that could potentially do them extreme physical harm.

This guy is NOT fucking around.

The same thing goes for peacocks.

Zoos all over the world have arrived at the conclusion that it is somehow OKAY to let peacocks just go wherever the fuck they want. Who was in charge of this decision? Who sat down and said, "Hrm. We're gonna need some sort of pen over here for the baby goats. Yeah. They might head butt somebody in the shin. We just can't afford that kind of liability. The peacocks? No! They're fine. Let them roam freely amongst the patrons!"

Aside: Did you know there is a United Peafowl Association? Seriously. http://www.peafowl.org/. How could I possible make that up?

Apparently Febreeze is harmful to your pet peacock or peahen. WHO figured this out? First of all, who keeps a peacock in their home? I can totally understand why Febreeze came into the equation here, because that place must be all kinds of stank. But really?



Really.
(P.S. If anybody was wondering what to get me for Christmas,this is now, officially number one of my wishlist. HINT HINT.)

At least now if anybody asks me, "Wow, what the fuck are you going to do with a degree in Shakespeare and Performance?" (as people often do - rude) I will be able to say, "I don't know. BUT at least I am not researching the effects of Febreeze on peafowl!"
Odds are they won't be able to come back with anything before I run away.