Backroads Dogtooth Massacre

Hick has been doing some handyman work for our back-creek neighbors, Bev and her husband. You may recall that he helped them serve papers on Crazy Stick Dude for a restraining order. The latest projects include building a chicken house, and putting ceiling fans in their home. Hick put up some outdoor lights for them for $50, and now he's putting in a ceiling fan and some wiring for around $100. He says Bev is as crazy as me. Of course, I think she's crazier, but that's just a matter of opinion.

Hick may be fully retired now, but he's a creature of habit. He plans certain activities for the weekdays, and other work for the weekends. A couple Fridays ago, Bev called to see when he could put in her ceiling fans. Hick said he would be over on Saturday. For all her haste, Bev told him that she and her husband don't do anything on Saturdays, because it's their sabbath. Hick says he has figured out that they are 7th Day Adventists. Not that such a deduction is either here nor there, or that it makes Hick a master theologian.

Bev called Sunday morning, saying that they were ready for him to do the work, but Hick told her he doesn't work on Sundays. I think perhaps he was just thumbing his nose at her, because he doesn't go to church or do anything special then, and I overheard him telling his buddy, Buddy, that, you know, he really doesn't do much on Sundays, that's his day for taking rides in his Toronado and going to Goodwills and flea markets, and it was presumptuous for Bev to assume he worked on Sundays. Though not in those exact, or so many, words.

The job turned out to be a little more complicated than Hick expected. He had to run wire to put a ceiling fan in the basement, where Bev and her husband are making a bedroom, due to their belief that Crazy Stick Dude is peeping through their windows on the main floor. Bev asked if Hick could move the upstairs ceiling fan to the basement, and put the new one upstairs, but Hick said that would be a lot of extra work, and he would just put the new one in the basement as planned. I don't know why he didn't renegotiate his nonexistent contract for more compensation, but he didn't.

Bev said she wanted to be able to show the house and sell it the same day, and have it move-in ready. Not sure how that works. And we don't know if she's really trying to sell it or not, because now they've asked Hick about installing an alarm system. Said the alarm people told them it cost $400, but Hick talked to The Veteran (who used to do that kind of work a few years ago) and said they could do it for $250. Handyman Hick, undercutting professionals in every profession.

Anyhoo...Bev had told Hick to come early, because she likes to lay down for a nap at 10:00. He said it was taking him about 2 hours to do the fan and wiring, and that Bev laid down on the floor and watched him. She said that her back hurt from some kind of electromagnetic waves that Crazy Stick Dude must be sending out. See? I'm not THAT level of crazy, just because Bev and I both believe in contrails. Anyhoo...Hick had an audience for his work. When he finished up, they walked out to the yard to contemplate plans for the chicken house.

"Will you kill that white chicken?" Bev said abruptly.

"Well...I guess I could. Why do you want to kill it?" asked Hick the chicken-killer-for-hire.

"It eats the eggs! Oh, look! That one just laid." Bev ran over to get the egg, but couldn't find it, and added, "Darn it, she already ate it!"

I don't know how he brought home the chicken in his TrailBlazer (Hick can't drive the Gator over there, because the dogs will follow him, which means Jack and Juno and our third unofficial dog, Copper), but he did. I don't know if there's some unwritten rule about not killing the chicken in front of the person requesting its demise.

Hick told me this story when he came home for lunch. "I brought the white chicken home and put it out with the rooster [the only chicken we have left]. He sure was happy! I couldn't see killing that chicken. Bev won't know."

"You could have just told her that you're low on chickens, and that you'd take it."

"Well...I can tell her I just couldn't kill it, so I kept it."

About an hour later, Hick sent me a text. It was a picture of the gravel road over by Shackytown and the goat pen.

"Looks like Jack&Jack manicured the white chicken I can't find it."

Let the record show that HOS discovered down at the bus stop that Copper the neighbor dog's actual name is ALSO Jack! And that I think in his text, Hick meant to say that the Jacks had massacred the white chicken, not manicured it. Because that would be quite a sight to see, and Hick would have had to find the chicken to tell that. And I would get Jack & Jack a part-time job at a nail salon. Anyhoo...in the background of the picture, over at the end of the gravel, up against the shack...was the silhouette of Big Jack.

I sent a text back: "Doesn't look good for the little clucker. At least you can tell Bev that you took care of her request."
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Now, for the propennyites...the gas station chicken store was STILL out of Diet Coke today! I think it must be the beginning of the apopadopalyspe, as Hick calls it. This makes the 5th day that I couldn't procure my magical elixir there! So I had to get it at Orb K.

That place is a regular penny mine! I was disappointed not to see any pennies when I stepped out of T-Hoe, and none around the trash can (which they moved closer to the building!), and none on the (formerly) penny-colored tile while waiting in line. But when I came out,
I SAW ONE!

Back behind T-Hoe's tire. Good thing I'm observant! I guess I needed to work for it, lest I think this penny-harvesting is a simple task. This one was a 2008.

That makes three days in a row. My 6th penny (so far--don't jinx it) in the last six days. My penny goblet will be full before I know it!
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This makes penny #39.
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