Chicken of Destiny Still at Large

I found this little gem on another fruitless search for the elusive Chicken of Destiny. If you study its plumage, you get the idea of the chicken I am talking about. It is a grand and glorious thing. This particular rooster is set in some kind of kitchen-y basket horror.

The risk of choosing such a questionable endeavor as chicken hunting is the inevitable trip to something likely called "The Kountry Kitchen" where sad chickens wear little red bandanas around their necks and sometimes, yes, cowboy boots. With spurs. Sometimes they get a hat. And are made to dance a jig, frozen in a two-step and an impossible beak-smirk for the rest of time. Or until some merciful shopper smashes it with a hammer. Of justice.

These Kountry Kitchens feature all sorts of deep-fried, homey livin: there's framed cross-stichings of Bible verses; ceramic picture frames adorned with fishhooks, bird calls, and big, sweaty hearts; Jesus in a snow globe; giant blankets featuring galloping horses, struggling bass, and the inevitable black panther crawling down a boulder; there's coffee cups and ashtrays and wall adornments and God knows what else, all tricked out in braided wood, swatches of quilt, and barbed wire. It is enough to make a chicken choke.

But sometimes you find sweet little bits of lovely--NOT the Chicken of Destiny, of course (I believe that it no longer exists)--but lesser chickens in need of good homes, for sure. Like this one. This chicken who needs to be freed of the checkered hell of Crisco cookin.

My inspiration for this latest search was a conversation with A. regarding the funniest episode of "My Name Is Earl" to date: the one where we learn that Earl's simple brother, Randy, is terrified of birds. If you haven't seen it, Netflix the first season on DVD--it is the episode called "Barn Burner." It is rooster-rific and hee-larious.