VooDoo Chicken Curse
I was giving the lawn the yearly mow when the lawn mower made a horrible sound, like running over a rock, and died. Feathers and most of a chicken shot out and flopped around like it was trying to get somewhere, only there was no head so I don't know where it could have been going, but it doesn't matter anyway it got to where it wanted to be and quit running - it flopped a bit, but no more running.
There had been a feral chicken hiding in the tall grass and I guess she was trying to pull some Clint-Eastwood-spaghetti-western thing and defend her eggs against seemingly invincible odds... Well the chicken's number was up and it lost. I did the only sensible thing and had my picture taken posing in front of the nest while holding up the lawnmower so you could see the blade, and the deceased chicken in the other. Just like a big game trophy hunter showing off his rifle and lion.
I didn't want to waste this gift from the gods and let the poor bird rest in peace. I hung the chicken from a shed in the backyard by its feet. Pacific Bell's parking lot just happened to be bordered by the shed. I painted "VOO DOO CHICKEN CURSE" and a picture of a chicken with X's over its eyes.
Later that night, I took a friend to show off my first kill and by god the dead had walked and the Mighty Warrior Bird was gone. I painted a sign that said, "You lily-livered, chicken-thieving, bastards. Return my chicken or I'll notify the proper authorities!"
The next day Mr. Gutless Jerk, the head of PacBells' security for that building, paid me a visit. "Would you mind taking down that sign? Several woman here have found it offensive."
"Uh, what sign is offensive to women?"
"One of the signs you have up back there. Several women employees have complained."
"Is it the Voodoo sign or the chicken-thieving bastards sign?"
"It's the the other one. Please remove it. Thank you."
I didn't know what he was talking about. Those were the only two signs up there, so I took down the "chicken-thieving" one and put up a new sign that said "Offensive? You ain't seen nothing yet" and hung up a large picture of Bob "Col. Hogan" Crane.
A week after this, an employee asked where I'd gotten the chicken and said he thought it was funny. He suggested I collect dead cats from the street and start putting up VooDoo Kitty Curses.
A week went by, and I hadn't been able to think of anything extra offensive when I heard a joke. I doctored the joke a little to fit my need and that night a new sign went up. "How do PacBell mom's know when their daughters on the rag? Her son's dick tastes like blood." My sister Cary suggested a smaller sign that said "Suck the puss out of my asshole, ya' goddamn dingwhoppers."
The next day I was hanging out listening to punk rock when Mr. Gutless Jerk came pulling into the driveway. He knocked and I hid giggling like a twelve year old. He knew I was home, but I wouldn't answer the door. He started pounding and yelling "hello!" Then he tried the side door, and stomped back and forth on the porch from door to door so I would hear his footsteps. After a few minutes of this he tried setting off his car alarm in the driveway and honked his horn, but I wouldn't bite. He knocked a little bit more and then went away.
The phone rang a few minutes later. It was Mr. Jerk. "Mr. Smith, why are you doing this?" I told him about a PacBell repairman that said it would be $50 to come in and fix the phone, but for only $35 he would tell me how to fix it. The repairman said "unplug your answering machine and plug it back in".
Actually, I only put the signs up because it seemed like a Good Idea at the time. Mr. Jerk told me I had until 5 pm to remove the signs or they would start legal proceedings. I thought since the signs weren't on their property fuck 'em.
I tried calling the ACLU to ask them if I had to remove the signs. "That's a real interesting problem. We have our next meeting in 6 weeks. I'll be sure to bring it up and let you know".
So I called a lawyer at random from the phone book. She was cool for a bloodsucking lawyer leech. "Well, we'll just pretend for a minute that PacBell isn't worth several billion dollars; and we'll forget that they probably have a whole team of highly priced lawyers; and we'll ignore the fact that you're calling a lawyer at random out of the phone book; and we'll ignore the fact that right or wrong if you piss them off they'll drag you through courts for years just to put you heavily in debt. We'll just ignore all that for now. They would probably still win and might possibly be able to collect for punitive damages. Any other questions?"
The sign went down, and like a whipped dog with my tail between my legs, I left them alone.
The eggs, by the way, were undamaged by the whirl-o-matic blades of the automated chicken death machine, but being a city boy, I wasn't about to eat anything that a damn chicken was parked on. My cousin Jeff and I ended up winging them at cars on Sunrise Boulevard. And the ACLU? They never called back.
