A child trusts their parents absolutely and without reservation until such a time as abuse of such devotion pushes a developing mind towards the path of cynicism and bitterness.



Which is not to say that an agile young mind may be able to utilize such challenges for growth and development opportunities. I still occasionally give my mother some grief over an event that happened when I was a young child of approximately 7 or 8. At that point we had a small farm with a handful of livestock to provide a cheaper source of meats and eggs, etc. (We were financially challenged *grin*)

One of my assigned chores was to collect the eggs. Upon my seeing my reluctance to fulfill my obligation my mother made this historic pronouncement "Don't worry. The chickens won't hurt you."

Now let me share some observations with you if you are not intimately familiar with chickens, especially from the perspective of someone who is barely over three feet tall. Chickens are mean, spiteful, ugly demons from the seventh layer of the abyss. They are armed with sharp beaks, sharp claws, spurs on their legs, and will not hesitate to smack you around with their wings if they get really riled, which is extremely easy to do.

So there I am standing outside the pen, in a staring contest with a rooster who was eager to draw blood to satisfy his dark lord's demand for child sacrifice, engaged in a contest of wills for which I was highly unprepared. In a fit of frustration I grabbed the garden hose, you know the kind that has the metal gun like attachment that keeps the water under pressure as let loose a blast against my smug oppressor.

Light dawns in the darkness.

I open the door to the coop carefully and immediately start laying down suppression fire and chase the evil minions out through the flap that separates the coop from the yard in which they are penned in. Battle calls ring out as the hordes try to rally and over take me but superior firepower (er, waterpower *grin*) is mine and I quickly dominate the field all except for one lone partisan who stands (or sits rather) her ground and won't be budged from her place despite considerable direct pressure to be moved. Battle weary I nodded to her and acknowledged her determination as legendary and lowered my weapon after quickly locking the latch that would prevent those who fled the field of battle from re-entering the coop.

Quickly in case the foul fowl had some ability to translocate through time and space or otherwise bypass the latched portal, I gathered the eggs of all except the valiant amazon and left the field with my spoils. Weary and exhilarated both, I placed the golden treasures within the fridge and went back outside to run in the woods with my dog without mentioning my adventure to my parents.


Until much, much later in life… Now I take great joy in embarrassing my mother by telling people the story of how she tried to tell this poor little kid that chickens are peaceful and non violent animals. Though I do have to point something out, my mother had managed to keep from having spoken a lie, though not from what she said especially since she has acknowledged what she said was a falsehood, but by my creative problem solving efforts. After all, the prophecy came true, the chickens did not hurt me.

Merry meet again