EAT ME

 

Pecking Orders

 

Sunday morning. A good one, more Aaron Neville lazy Sunday than Kris Kristofferson’s Sunday mornin’ comin’ down. The stereo is playing Bruce Cockburn, early stuff from before he got all squirrelly about rocket launchers and the fascist architecture. The weekend edition of The National Post is still pristine, saved from yesterday for this quiet morning. My Beatles Apple Records mug is brimming with freshly brewed ORGANIC FAIR TRADE coffee. The Ocean Spray ruby red grapefruit 100% JUICE BLEND bottle sports a NEW LOOK! yet the Same Great Taste with NO SUGAR ADDED. The bread slices in the toaster are made With delicious, high fibre, omega 3 flax seeds. Other ingredients include Sprouted organic whole grains, though no iodine or Vitamin K according to the Nutrition Facts label, but zinc and copper up the yin-yang. Free Run brown eggs are sizzling in the black iron frying pan. I’ve sprinkled them with ground Tellicherry pepper. And I’m standing before the stove wielding a spatula, monitoring as the whites cook white when I glance at the counter and I read this on the lid of the grey carton: Eggs exclusively from hens who are free to roam indoors and express some natural behaviours. Everything stops. Happy, happy chickens. I turn the burner off and then pull the plug on the toaster. I need to think about this. Has the agri-business and by extension white male patriarchal society hithertofore exploited chickens? How long does the average career of an industrial egg-laying hen last and what happens to them when they’re done? I open a beer which boasts a DISTINCTIVE, FULL-BODIED FLAVOUR. I go outside and light a cigarette that promises TRUE CANADIAN TASTE. My little chickadees are flitting about the feeders hanging from the birch tree. The Baptist couple stroll by with their dog but don’t stop, maybe because I’m wearing flannel pants, a fleece and a sweat stained Chisox cap. Maybe because I’m drinking and smoking. Maybe because they have to get to church or wherever they go on Sunday mornings. Just another Christian brand and I wonder if they’ll go see the new Noah movie and question why he remembered chickens and chickadees but forgot to board the dinosaurs and unicorns before the great flood lifted the ark? There’s a package of MAPLE LEAF PRIME NATURALLY Portions chicken breasts in the freezer. GRAIN FED, AIR CHILLED and CANADIAN FARM RAISED. It’s possible chickens got a raw deal from history and I suppose ruffled feathers constitute a natural behaviour. As does crossing the road, but who went first? The roaming chicken or the free run egg?