Père poulet
Paternal chickens are not what I was trying to describe this afternoon.
I was trying to commiserate on overly-attentive fathers, the dangerously endearing Mr. Moms who spoil their kids with a level of love, attention, and hot, nutritious meals everyday.
But I ended up with a mouth full of feathers and scaly ankle joints.
Before she moved "back east," my mom tended a pen of expired chicks in her backyard. No amount of cajoling or promises of egg-salad sandwiches on rye could convince me to cross the swinging-door threshold. Some deep recess of my poultry-despising psyche feared being trapped in a corner of that haven of bitchy throw-backs to prehistoria, scratched to death by the brood of edgy, eternally ovulating hens.
Yes, I am repulsed by chickens - their beady, darting pebbles for eyes, those shit-encrusted feet scratching at nothing, and the pecking! The pecking!***
In trying to be clever again, toying with the term "daddy hen," to buckle with my experience growing up with a Dad whose love felt limitless and whose generosity remains unparalleled, but who may have spoiled me a wee bit, I instead brought a squawking, mite-ridden pterodactyl to the conversation.
Oh well, we laughed and imitated a chicken dad and decided that it's better to be a mère poule than a père poulet.
***(This irrational revulsion of hens doesn't keep me from enjoying them baked, fried, smoked, or even boiled down to a healthy stock. From time to time, we'll buy poulet rôti from the halal butcher near the market place. In fact, this is the same friendly butcher who supplied me with a pre-cooked Turkey for Thanksgiving, sans claws.)
I was trying to commiserate on overly-attentive fathers, the dangerously endearing Mr. Moms who spoil their kids with a level of love, attention, and hot, nutritious meals everyday.
But I ended up with a mouth full of feathers and scaly ankle joints.
Before she moved "back east," my mom tended a pen of expired chicks in her backyard. No amount of cajoling or promises of egg-salad sandwiches on rye could convince me to cross the swinging-door threshold. Some deep recess of my poultry-despising psyche feared being trapped in a corner of that haven of bitchy throw-backs to prehistoria, scratched to death by the brood of edgy, eternally ovulating hens.
Yes, I am repulsed by chickens - their beady, darting pebbles for eyes, those shit-encrusted feet scratching at nothing, and the pecking! The pecking!***
In trying to be clever again, toying with the term "daddy hen," to buckle with my experience growing up with a Dad whose love felt limitless and whose generosity remains unparalleled, but who may have spoiled me a wee bit, I instead brought a squawking, mite-ridden pterodactyl to the conversation.
Oh well, we laughed and imitated a chicken dad and decided that it's better to be a mère poule than a père poulet.
***(This irrational revulsion of hens doesn't keep me from enjoying them baked, fried, smoked, or even boiled down to a healthy stock. From time to time, we'll buy poulet rôti from the halal butcher near the market place. In fact, this is the same friendly butcher who supplied me with a pre-cooked Turkey for Thanksgiving, sans claws.)
Comments