Screaming, Flying Chicken

Many, many years ago, I worked as a security officer at a department store. On one afternoon, while prowling the store with my partner, Jason, looking for shoplifters, another employee jokingly tossed a play ball at us from another aisle. There was some playful banter about how we would "get him back", but all in good fun. Or so it seemed at the time. From that point on, for a period of weeks, 'Jon' (the poor guy who had dared challenge us...) received a varied assortment of items from all directions, at any time. But he never saw who was doing it. He knew it was us, but since he never saw us, he couldn't really be sure. Being undercover security officers, Jason & I knew how to disappear quickly and quietly, so that Jon never actually saw anything at all. It wasn't very long before Jon began to exhibit signs of what could be mistaken for PTSD.

The final straw was reached when one afternoon, Jason and I spotted Jon hard at work in the sporting goods department, putting fishing lures on their hooks for display. Jason had earlier picked up a toy chicken, which when squeezed crowed very loudly "Cock-a-doodle-doo!!!" This particular toy was poorly made, so it took a second or two for the screeching to start once it had been squeezed. Once we observed Jon to be concentrating hard at matching the fishing lures to the correct location, we positioned ourselves in the nearby men's clothing department, and Jason let it fly. It was a beautiful flight, forever etched in my mind. The now-ballistic chicken reached the apex of its flight path just as the screeching "Cock-a-doodle-dooooo" started. Jon turned to look for the source of the awful noise just in time to turn his face squarely into the path of the chicken, which terminated its twenty foot flight right on his forehead. Once again, he never saw who had launched this latest assault upon his dignity. But he knew. We had been back in the sanctity of our office for just a couple of minutes before Jon came banging on our door. But since he never saw us, he couldn't even be sure if we were working that day. (Our schedules were varied, and never posted) We didn't answer, leaving him to question his sanity.

A few hours later, Jason was out walking through the store when Jon confronted him. Jon was all red, sweating, and breathing as though he had just ran a marathon. He said "Do you want me to quit? Because thats what I'll do, right now! I can't handle it any more. I think I'm going to quit right now!" Jason was able to keep Jon from quitting, which would have made us feel even more guilty than we did at the moment.

This incident happened over a decade ago, but was brought back to mind yesterday morning as I unwrapped a gift from my sister. Had these been on the market 10 years ago, Jon might have ended up in the hospital under heavy sedation. The accuracy and distance attainable from these is uncanny.

This thing screeches with a "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" as soon as you launch it. It was a good gag gift, made all the better because it reminded me of that story.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. Before changing jobs last summer, I would have taken it to work & gotten a lot of mileage out of it there, but the people at my new workplace would never appreciate it. Maybe I'll use it as a punishment motivational tool for my kids.

Thanks sis!