The Chicky Chicky Bang Gang
A rooster waited outside a Dollar General all day for somebody to notice him, and it cost me one dollar to be that somebody.
I seem to have made a new friend. He is about two feet tall, covered in metallic green plumage, and screams at strangers in a parking lot, which in most zip codes would get you a court date but in his case is just Wednesday.
Allow me to explain.
The corner market where I have been buying my meals lately sits next to a farm. The farm has a chicken coop. The chicken coop has a hole in the fence, because of course it does, and every so often a small delegation of chickens will meander down the hill and into the parking lot like they have a meeting scheduled. There are usually four of them, three hens and one very large rooster, and I have dubbed them the Chicky Chicky Bang Gang, because when you spend enough time alone you start naming poultry, and I have made peace with that.
Based on his iridescent green feathers he appears to be one of those fancy chicken varieties, which means he is essentially a small dinosaur wearing a tuxedo, and he carries himself accordingly. The hens defer to him. The parking lot defers to him.
I defer to him.
A few times this summer, when the Gang showed up, I would go inside, buy a sleeve of Ritz crackers, crush them up, and pour them out so the crew had something to eat. This became our arrangement. I never signed anything, but the rooster clearly considered it binding.
(Then the hens disappeared. I have not seen them in several weeks, and I choose to believe they are on tour. But the rooster stayed. And in the last week alone, I have fed that bird three times, which brings me to the part of the story where I realized I was being trained by a chicken.)
Earlier this week I was riding my bike past the store, and the rooster was posted up by the front door like a tiny feathered bouncer. As I passed, he let out a cock-a-doodle-doo. Coincidence, I figured. Roosters doodle. It is right there in the job description.
On my way back, I passed the store again. He doodled again. Precisely as I went by. That is two doodles for two passes, which in statistics is what we call A Pattern, and in chicken is what we call:
‘HEY, CRACKER GUY.’
I pull into the parking lot, and there he is. Same spot. Same door. Same small dinosaur in a tuxedo, standing sentry in front of the sliding doors of a middle-of-nowhere Dollar General like he is waiting for a package.
And it hit me. He is not confused. He is not lost. He is HUNGRY. He has been standing at those doors all day watching humans walk in and out carrying entire bags of food, wondering what exactly a chicken has to do around here to get some service.
So I went inside and bought him a dollar bag of chips. Tato Skins, for the record, not the greasy fried stuff, because I care about chicken health and I will not have his cholesterol on my conscience. I crushed them up on my way out, poured the crumbs on the ground a few feet away from him, and that bird came RUNNING at me and let loose the single most triumphant COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO I have ever heard in my life. It was not a warning. It was not territorial. It was pure celebration.
It was the sound of a creature who had been waiting twelve hours for one single human being to look at him and think, correctly, that guy is standing there because he wants a snack.
One dollar. That is what it cost me to make another living being visibly, audibly, ear-splittingly happy.
Now compare that dollar to the hundred thousand dollars some folks spend on a brand new Corvette. I have nothing against Corvettes as machines. Fine machines. But let us be honest about what a hundred-thousand-dollar sports car actually is, which is a very loud, very expensive penis allegory that you finance for 72 months so strangers at red lights will think you are important. They do not think you are important. They think you are compensating, and they are correct, and the rooster ate better than you did today for a dollar.
Those things are just that. Things. They are not joy. They are not meaning. They are shiny objects we buy to fill a hole that shiny objects have never once in human history managed to fill, which is why the people who own the most shiny objects tend to also own the most therapists. Meanwhile I got more genuine satisfaction out of one dollar and a runaway chicken than any dealership has ever sold anybody, because I noticed a hungry creature and I did something about it. That is the whole trick. That is the entire secret the self-help industry charges $29.99 a book to not tell you.
Because here is my actual point, and it goes beyond poultry. The modern world keeps us so busy doing modern things, scrolling, streaming, refreshing, comparing, that most of us walk right past the suffering standing at the sliding doors of everyday life. You do not have to change the world. Slip a few bucks to the panhandler who is down on his luck. Volunteer to pick up garbage around your neighborhood. Take your broke neighbor’s kids to the water park (unless you are Jeffrey Epstein, in which case please do not do that). Little things, stacked up across millions of people, move the world more than any billionaire’s foundation ever has, and they cost about as much as a bag of tato skins.
So this is my challenge to you this week. Be kind. Be mindful. Notice the hungry creatures around you, the two-legged kind and the feathered kind alike. And if you ever come across a rooster posted up outside a dollar store, doodling his heart out at every passing bicycle, do the right thing and buy that little cock-a-doodle-doodler something to eat.
He will thank you. Loudly. At a volume you are not prepared for.
If this story made you smile, consider a paid subscription to The Wise Wolf Club. It costs less per month than a Corvette payment, roughly 99.9 percent less, and unlike the Corvette it actually funds something useful, namely independent journalism, my ongoing bills, and apparently a small but growing poultry outreach ministry. The rooster does not accept Substack payments directly. I checked. He prefers chips.
Help keep the Wise Wolf howling.
I have 60 something chickens and they all have unique personalities. You are a good human! They love seeds but be careful with the salt. Mine love peanuts & sunflower seeds and dried/fresh fruits and cucumbers.
That was a great mood booster of an article, thanks WW 🫶