Apr. 17, 2002 ~ Lousy criminals
There's no doubt about it, I'd make a lousy criminal. But the immorality of my attempted "crime" is questionable. You decide...
At church last Sunday, I asked an acquaintance (who is buying property near us) if he would like a rooster and a duck. We have too many roosters and too many male ducks, so we're trying to find homes for the extras. He laughed and thought about it for a minute, saying that his wife didn't want him to have any animals, but that if the animals just showed up at their place, she'd have to let him keep them. So he wanted me to drop them off in his chicken pen late that evening, after they'd gone for the day. (They're doing some remodeling and haven't moved in yet.) Laughing still, he said that the blame would surely fall on a couple of his friends, who would both deny it, and no one would ever know the source of the birds. He loves birds, by the way, and already has many sacks of food for feeding the wild birds and squirrels that come to his yard.
This whole idea tickled me at first, this sneaking around to deliver the birds. So at the appointed time, Husband rounded them up, put them in carriers, and off we went to the neighbor's house. We had jugs of water and a bucket of corn.
On the way there, I had second thoughts. We got all the way to the chicken pen, and by then I had THIRD thoughts.
"Let's not do this," I said. "It's not right to bring these birds here if 'Sue' doesn't want them. Maybe we should take them home."
My long-suffering husband gave me a patient look and asked me what I wanted to do. Wordlessly I picked up the jugs of water and the corn; he grabbed the carriers, and we headed back to the truck. He never complained.
I think mean, ugly thoughts about people who dump unwanted animals off, and it FELT like that was what we were doing. My son laughed when we returned home with the birds, saying that our friend had ASKED me for them. But I felt like a criminal, and an incompetent one, at that.
I'll talk to the friend again, and if or when it's okay with his wife, the birds can go right back over there. Until then, well, we have a few extra birds.
Anybody need a rooster?
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