It's like the Yankees won game seven of the World Series.
I sigh with relief and roll backwards onto my butt. We got the water shut off and Perfect Pipes will be on their way soon. Crisis mostly averted.
I hear Dad pound down the stairs before he jogs back into the kitchen.
"You did it, honey! Thank you so much."
"We did it," I say. "Team work."
I stand up and Dad high fives me, and then he does his little happy dance, which is a cross between the Hora and a Leprechaun's jig. Right in the middle of our celebration, Dad frowns.
"Oh crap, I forgot that I have to get the chickens in for the night. I told Renata I'd take care of that, but I've got to wait for the plumber."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
Dad explains that the chickens have the run of their fenced-in area during the day, but at night they're put away inside the hen house for safety. Otherwise, they'd become some nocturnal animal's supper. I'm on a high from our plumbing success, but even so, dealing with chickens sounds like more than I can handle. A leaky toilet is one thing. Birds are another.
"I can wait for the plumber," I say.
Dad hesitates. "I know you don't like the chickens, but I feel like I should stay here in case Renata comes home. I don't want her to find this mess and think I've left you here to deal with it. Plus, the plumber can show me what I did wrong. Maybe I can learn something."
I would refuse, except Dad's face is totally pathetic. He's saved me many times over the years, and I owe him this one.
"Okay, fine, I'll do it."
* * *
When I getto the chicken enclosure, they're strutting around happily, pretending to be completely harmless. I'm not going to be lulled into complacency though. I know these peckers would love to stab my eyes out if they had the chance. They're just too short to do it. I can't blame them. If I were locked up in a pen all day with people tossing dried worms at me and groping around under my rump for eggs, I'd be pissed off, too. They don't look upset, I have to admit. It's possible I'm anthropomorphizing them a tad too much.
I'm still wearing the cotton pajama pants and vintage Bowie t-shirt I put on earlier today, and there are no pockets in my outfit. I have to stretch my shirt out at the bottom and make a little hammock to fill with mealworms, which I don’t look at too closely because doing so will induce my gag reflex. I already regret that I agreed to help, but I need to at least make an attempt before going back to the house.
When I enter the chicken run, a few of the birds dash for the gate, and I have to slam it closed behind me to prevent an escape. Then I realize they're not trying to bolt, they're coming for the treats, the little gluttons. I toss some of their food away from me so they'll disperse while I formulate a plan.
The coop is located in the center of the run, and I have to get eighteen chickens inside it. Since they seem to love these delicious mealworms, that's my first approach. I dribble a little trail of treats leading to the ramp, then sprinkle more on the ramp itself and chuck some inside the coop. Then, I wait.
The chickens start devouring the food, bringing them closer to the house, and for a moment, I feel brilliant. Farm life must come naturally to me, I guess. I'm probably one of those naturalist savants, and let's not forget the fact I found that shut-off valve in the house. I literally pat myself on the back as my little friends continue to feast, and I imagine them walking the plank right into the coop. I begin planning what I'll eat when I get home, now that my appetite is back with a vengeance.
That's where my plan falls apart. They eat the food on the ground and the ramp, but they're not moving into the coop. It's like they don't realize it's their home. I toss more mealworms into the coop itself, and the white chicken closest to the door wanders inside. I slam the door behind her and do a little dance in my flip flops. A small victory. One down and seventeen to go. As a result of my dancing, I lose a shoe and have to hop around the pen to retrieve it. Who knows what diseases I could get in here if I walk barefoot.
I assess my next victim, a chicken with pretty brown and white feathers who seems interested in the food on the ramp. Once she's at the door, I open it and try to encourage her inside, without actually touching her, of course. Instead of her going in, chicken number one comes, jetting down the ramp like she's yelling, "Sayounara, Muthfucka!"
"Noooo!" I try in vain to block her escape with my outstretched hands.
I'm not sure she pecks me on purpose, but there's definitely beak to hand contact. After I take that hit, she dodges the barrier I'm forming with my legs, and just like that I'm back down to zero chickens captured.
After letting loose a stream of choice words for my feathered friends, I take a deep breath and regroup. This feels like an impossible task. It's like those games where you stand in a glass box, and they blow cash in the air around you. There's no way you can catch all those freaking bills, and every time you catch one, you drop another. If this were a reality show game, they would call it Chicken Round-up and recruit accomplished urban women to play, just to humiliate us. I look around the pen, like I'm going to find someone filming me with a camera.
If you asked me to get ten drunk friends onto the A train at three in the morning, I'd simply pretend I saw Tom Hiddleston (or Jennifer Lawrence, depending on their preferences) boarding whatever subway car I wanted them to get into. They'd happily stumble inside, one after the other, no problem. But this situation with the chickens is not in my wheelhouse. I don't have celebrity poultry to lure these birds anywhere, and the mealworms aren’t enticing enough to convince them to board the train.
If I hadn't promised Dad I'd get the chickens into the coop I would run out of here and never look back. He looked so desperate earlier though. Night is settling in, and I need to move on these beasts if I'm going to finish before it's completely dark. The last thing I want to be doing is chasing birds that I can barely see.
"This is a nightmare," I mumble to myself, slapping at a mosquito and dropping about three-quarters of the food left in my pouch.
I stare down a grayish chicken with a red comb who is pecking the ground near my feet. Maybe I can hold food under her nose and lead her all the way to the coop, the way we used treats to lead our cat Norman to his cat carrier.
I hold the remaining mealworms under gray bird's beak and shimmy backwards toward the coop, but she doesn't seem to understand the plan here. She only follows for a few inches, then gets distracted by something under a clump of weeds. Great, I picked the bird with attention issues. I dump the rest of the food on the dirt and watch with futility as a couple of the chickens zoom in to eat it.
These birds are stubborn, but I'm a "never give up, never surrender" type of woman. They aren't going to take me down. Would the Marines give up if their mission was to house these chickens before nightfall? No, sir.
