The Rubber Chicken

I had to go into the office yesterday for the first time in over two years. My boss wanted me to clean up the desks of people who no longer work there and generally make sure everything is in order for the official reopening of the office in a month.

In one of the desks, I found a green rubber chicken. It had been a short-lived promotional awards program that I’d started a few weeks before the pandemic started. I handed them out to a few key members of the team to try to stir up a little friendly team competition.

I guess this person hadn’t found it to be the treasure I had intended. So, I took it home to give to Troy. He loved it. But after 27 seconds of hearing that thing croak and squawk, I immediately regretted that decision. Thankfully, his short attention span kicked in, and I only had to hear it for a little while before he was off onto something else.

But this morning, he found it lying on the floor where he’d left it, and I was serenaded to the sounds of croaking and squawking. Troy took the chicken in the car with him, and held it while he sang in a rather croaky voice. The song was very long and elaborate, going through quite a few emotional changes before coming to an abrupt end with one long note. Then, Troy gave the chicken one long squeeze, and it croaked out a long slow note that sounded exactly like the end of Troy’s song. I busted out laughing.