Parable Of The Chicken
Have I told you the parable of the chicken?
A man walks up to a group of 10-year-olds at a public park. There’s nothing particularly unusual or notable about this man outwardly, other than his sense of humor. He’s a bit reserved, but loves to entertain; entertain other people, yes, but mostly himself. He looks down at the tallest of the group, still a couple heads shorter than him, and taps him on the shoulder.
“Hey, kid, want to hear a joke?”
“Sure thing, sir!”
“Why did the chicken cross the road?”
“I don’t know, why?” the kid asks. The man pauses for dramatic effect, as the rest of the group turns to hear the answer. Finally, he cracks a grin, and tells them the punchline.
“To get to the other side!” He busts out laughing, but the kids are laughing even harder. It makes him happy to see them happy, even if his joke was kind of corny. He guesses they’ve never heard it before.
“That’s a good one!” one of the kids exclaims, still chuckling.
“Thanks, kid. Be well,” the man says as he walks off.
A year later, he finds himself in the same park, and recognizes the same group of kids. They’re 11-year-olds now, and they seem to be part of a heated discussion. The man, now curious, gets closer to hear what they’re talking about.
“No, listen to me,” one of the kids says. “When the chicken crosses the road to the other side, crossing the road means that the chicken died, and the other side represents the afterlife. This is clearly a critique of religious morality.”
“Where’s the religion?” another kid asks. “The other side is a neutral term, and crossing the road is a neutral act. The chicken isn’t going to heaven or hell, it’s going nowhere, that’s where the joke ends. It’s a neutral or nonexistent afterlife.”
“You people are IDIOTS!” a third kid screams. “This isn’t a story about the afterlife! The chicken is a tragic hero, and crossing the road is his great act, but he fails, and gets run over by a car, because cars are on the road!”
“I don’t really accept the car headcanon. Why would the chicken die?” a fourth kid questions. “I don’t want the chicken to die. I love the chicken and I will protect it with my life. It made it safely to the other side, which is a beautiful field of grass and seeds, and it lived happily ever after.”
“Hey wait, why did you call the chicken a he?” a fifth kid raises their hand. “The chicken is a she! I’m sick and tired of people calling the chicken a he, because she’s not a he!”
“How do you know that?”
“Because chickens lay eggs, and girl animals lay eggs, so the chicken’s obviously a girl!”
“Did the chicken lay an egg?”
“No, but everyone knows chickens lay eggs!”
“I had two eggs for breakfast this morning.”
“Ok, but which came first, the chicken, or the egg?”
“The eggs come first. I’m gonna eat chicken for lunch.”
“Alright, I looked it up in the chicken book, and it says hens lay eggs. Not chickens.”
“Really? Then what’s the one that doesn’t lay eggs?”
“It says it’s called a cock!”
“EWWWWWWW!” Everyone screams, and takes a couple steps away from the kid with the chicken book. “He said the C-word-” a kid says, before bumping into the man from before.
“What’s all the commotion?” the man asks.
“Oh my god!” the kids gasp, except for two, who say “oh my chicken” instead. “It’s the guy who told us the joke!”
One of them jumps up and down and points at the one with the book. “Can you get him in trouble? He said the C-word!”
“Oh, uh, maybe you might want to say ‘rooster’ in the future-”
“SEE? He told you to say ROOSTER, but you said the dirty word instead! You’re nasty! Get him in trouble!” the kid points and shouts.
“How about we talk about something else?” the man says, trying to change the topic of conversation.
“Yeah! So about the chicken,” the kid says, as every single kid in the crowd hurriedly tries to explain their chicken theory to the man. “So, am I right?”
“Well, uh,” the man pauses. “Honestly, I didn’t really think about it that much, I just made up a thing about a chicken and thought that’d be it. Of course, you could always think about it more, and I’m impressed, kind of shocked, that you made up all this stuff about one little chicken! You’re all very creative. Keep at it, I guess, and I’m happy for you,” he says.
“No, you don’t understand. Can you tell us if we’re right about the chicken?”
“Wait, what?”
“We need to know if we’re right. What’s the point, otherwise?”
“Uh, having fun and learning about literary analysis?” The man’s been out of school for quite some time, but he doesn’t remember a correct answer to any of the essay prompts in English class. Maybe he just didn’t do too well, he thinks.
“No, I need to know if I’m right! Otherwise, I got it wrong! Tell us the answer, chicken-man!” a kid demands. The crowd starts to make noise.
The man’s shocked at this demand. It doesn’t make any sense to him; even he didn’t think this far ahead. Maybe he led people on to think he did by accident, but he clearly didn’t. He didn’t expect this many people to care this much about his joke about a chicken. “Well, what if all of you are right?”
“Huh? Ok,” the kid says. The man runs off before they can question it.
Another year later, he finds himself in the same park, and recognizes the same group of kids. They’re 12 now, and as you may know, 12-year-olds are unique.
“What’s up, chickens? Did you guys realize that in order to get to the park, we crossed the road first, like the chicken?” one of the kids says. The rest of the kids scream in excitement.
“That’s a total chicken-reference! We’re living in the chicken joke right now, and we’re on the other side!”
“Yeah, and when we get back, we’re gonna do it again!”
“No, the chicken gets run over by a truck. You don’t want to be the chicken.”
“Truck theory’s already been debunked, idiot. Look at the chicken wiki for the chicken lore.”
“Wait, there’s a CHICKEN WIKI?”
“Yeah! It has pages on the chicken, the road, crossing, and the other side, along with detailed analysis by the top chicken lore experts.”
“I called up a chicken expert and he says he only deals with real chickens. I asked about the chicken and the other side and he said he doesn’t know.” The other kids start laughing.
“Are you spreading chicken lore?” one of the kids squeals. “I made a chicken reference to my dad yesterday, and he didn’t even notice! I said I was gonna go to the park and cross the road to get to the other side tomorrow!”
“I asked my teacher why the chicken crossed the road, and he knew the answer. Do you think he’s one of us?” The kids go “ooooooh” at this new revelation.
“I made up a chicken-fic. Does anyone wanna hear it?” one kid says.
“Yeah, sure,” another one shrugs.
“Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other slide!” they say, smiling. The other kids aren’t laughing. “What? I thought it’s good.”
“I don’t know. It’s not the same without both the chicken and the road. We need a real sequel,” another kid says.
“Hey, it’s the chicken guy!” one of them points out. “You gotta tell us another joke!”
“What, another one? I mean, I-”
“Yeah, will it have a chicken in it?”
“Why would it have a chicken?” the man asks.
“Well, people keep telling us jokes, but there’s always something missing. My dad told me this joke that went like, what’s the difference between a piano and a fish?”
“Oh! You can tune a piano, but you can’t tune-a fish!” the man chuckles. “That’s a good one!” he says, but the kid just rolls their eyes.
“Yeah, but I don’t get it. It doesn't have a chicken in it. I’m trying to find where the chicken comes in,” the kid says, puzzled.
“Oh, and my teacher said this other one, where he said, orange you glad I didn’t say banana?” another kid says. “I’m stuck on that one, what do oranges and bananas have to do with each other? They’re both foods, like chicken? Is this some kind of chicken reference?”
“My uncle asked me what’s green and has wheels, and he said it’s grass, and he lied about the wheels! I felt bad because he lied to me, but confused because there’s no chicken!” a third kid laments.
“Well, not all jokes need to have chickens in them. That’s just one joke! There are plenty of others that don’t involve chickens at all.”
“That’s wrong!” a kid shouts back. “Every joke has three parts: a setup, a punchline, and a chicken! It says it right there in the chicken lore wiki!”
“Well, that doesn’t sound right!” the man says. “I've heard plenty of good jokes with nary a hen or rooster.”
“Well, we want chickens in our jokes, because those are the best jokes! Tell us another joke, and put a chicken in it! We need to hear what happens next!”
At this point, the man’s kind of ticked off. He made a joke two years ago, and sure, it was funny, but he just feels bad. He feels like he ruined any sense of engagement these kids will feel from anything else. There are so many other jokes, told by teachers and family members, that they just missed because they were fundamentally looking for the wrong thing! It isn’t the chicken that makes the joke, it’s the humor that makes the joke! He wishes the kids could see this, but he’s in too deep. He’s surrounded by a crowd, and he could tell them to try the veal, but they only want chicken. He takes a deep breath, and begins the only joke he can think of.
“So, a man, his wife, their son and daughter, the family dog, and a chicken walk into a talent agent’s office. The talent agent asks, ‘what do you got?’ and then-” the man tells the raunchiest joke imaginable, full of innuendo, taboo, and blatant disregard for every polite custom known to humankind, while still involving a chicken. The crowd is enraptured, and lets him tell the joke the whole way through. “-and the talent agent says ‘wow, what do you call yourselves?’ and the chicken squawks, ‘THE ARISTOCRATS!’”
The kids are silent. They’re in shock and awe that such a joke could ever be told. Finally, two kids break the silence, simultaneously screaming-
“OH MY GOD! This is the greatest joke ever told! This revolutionizes humor, thank you so much!”
“OH MY GOD! How could that come out of anyone’s mouth? You should be ashamed of yourself, I hate you!”
The crowd immediately breaks into two groups and starts fighting itself. The man walks off, shaking his head, never to be seen again.
The moral of the story is don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Or, was it the chicken?