Can You Handle The Chicken?In our last post, we challenged LJKGW readers (the best readers in the frickin' world YEAH! *belly bump*) to come up with their own original answers to an epic question that has vexed philosophers and comics alike for eons centuries at least six months.Here - at long last and in no particular order - are their equally epic responses, with links for extra, baked-in tastiness!Enjoy - and thanks to everyone who participated! (BTW, I tested all of the links, but if you find one that doesn't work, let me know and I'll fix it asap.)
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Well, it didn't really -- it was just reported that way by the mainstream liberal media...PearlPearl, Why You Little...Dude. He was free range.
Ann ImigAnn's RantsBecause NOBODY messes with Chicken, not even the road.
Jay FerrisGenius Pending
...to get to the other sides: mashed potatoes & cold slaw!E. Mitchell
emitchellhumor.com
Film Hound
Because she was hiding from the PTA.Wendi Aarons
wendiaarons.com
Because she had always wanted to test the veracity of that Frogger game.George Waters
The "Wa" Blog
Because her soon-to-be-hatchling was egging her on.Wesley King
Generally Bad IdeasMs Chicken crossed the road because it was rumored, due to her supple breasts and thighs, she was next in line for the slaughter house. In an attempt to save her life, she was going to the plastic surgeon for a breast reduction and liposuction.Rachel
Consciously Sedated
Answer submitted by convicted rooster Jimmy "Three Clucks" Panituccio: Who in da flock says it was me that crossed da friggin' road? When I find da rat who ran his beak, he's gonna end up in an eighteen-piece bucket over a da Kentucky Coi-nels.Chris
KnuckleheadHumor
Of course I can't be certain, but it looked to me as if the chicken crossed the road to avoid having to pass me on the sidewalk. I hope I'm wrong, but she wouldn't make eye contact, so I'm afraid that I'm not.Boudreau Freret
The Adventures of B. Freret
The Chicken crossed that road after staring at it for several years. It was her Rubicon, her cross to bear, the albatross around her neck. That road was her ex-boyfriend, her mother in law, her own mother, her 3rd grade teacher, and her miscarriage all wrapped up in one. That road stood for everything that said "you're not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, or ballsy enough" to cross me. Chicken dreamed about that road. It made her wake up in the night, horny and sobbing. She obsessed about it, spent hours in therapy processing it, and wrote two entire novels about it. That nobody bought. Finally, after facing postpartum depression, a foreclosure, and the loss of her sister to breast cancer, Chicken realized that the road was only in her mind and she said "Screw it" (only it sounded more like "BOK BOK!") and just crossed it. And you know what? It was no big deal.Kim Tracy Prince
House of Prince
To show his friends he had guts...no wait...that was the hedgehog.R. Charish
Spotty Dog
She was in search of a martini bar and a massage parlor which was what her DOCTOR prescribed for her apparent case of 'MY KIDS ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY" sickness. I hear there's an epidemic.Vodka Mom
VodkaMom.com
Because her GPS said, "Turn left, here!"Sharlene Thomas
mainstreamsolarcooking.com
Because his deeply unconscious egg-oedipal complex had him enacting a masochistic impulse towards his own destruction due to the fact that he had fantasies of killing his father and sleeping with his mother. If the chicken would undertake a four time a week psychoanalysis it could work through his issues and stop this masochistic enterprise.Tracey
La Belette Rouge
Chicken crossed the road because she wanted to show her community she could. All her life, no one believed in Chicken. As early as the nest, the others called her useless, said she'd never even be good enough for a stew pot. In spite of them all, Chicken believed in herself. She knew someday, given a chance, she'd do something wonderful. So she gathered up her courage, puffed out her feathers, raised her beak, and stepped out onto the road. Then a wonderful thing happened. In the very instant Chicken left her old, disparaging community behind, she found a new one. There across the road, cheering her on, rooting for her, was a family of foxes. They liked her. They really liked her! They believed she could do anything! Chicken hurried across the road toward her new life.Jan Rider Newman
swamplily.com
Beyond Acadia: Reading, Writing and Living Well
bestdamncreativewritingblog.com
Why do you want to know? Are you with the government? Does the Homeland Security Threat level adjust according to the location of the chicken? Do you have a warrant? Let me see your identification. What chicken?Lori O.
In Pursuit of Martha Points
She smelled our waffle pan heating up and immediately knew to run away. Just like Pavlov's dog. Well, no, I guess the chicken's response to waffle stimulae is pretty much the opposite of Pavlov's dog response to the bell. Pavlov's dog wouldn't have let that chicken get out of the yard, though, I'll tell you that much. That pup would drool over a nice plate of chicken and waffles, bell or no bell. But then again, who wouldn't?Deb Rox
Deb on the Rocks
Aw geez, asking WHY the chicken crossed the road is so last year. Better you should ask HOW she crossed the road or WHEN she crossed the road! Enough with the WHY already!Bama Cheryl
Making Other Plans
The chicken crossed the road because it saw my mother coming. My Mom, named “Milka,” came from good Czech stock, and loved nothing more than wringing a neck. As a matter of fact, she threatened to wring mine frequently during my adolescent years. Due to her prowess with farm animals, this was not a threat to be taken lightly! Milka learned how to kill chickens and put them in pots at a young age. Those were some delicious meals, once we all learned to get over the sight feathers, guts, and the odd chicken foot on the floor. Mom also knew how to make her own sausage and concoct something called “blood pudding,” which believe you me, neither I or my sister ever wanted to try. Milka also could make her own beer and had a recipe for lye soap. When she washed my hair, my scalp hurt for a week afterwards. Good grief—it wasn’t just CHICKENS that walked in fear of my Mom. My Dad was always VERY respectful!Molly Campbell
mollydcampbell.com
In all these years of speculation about the chicken's motives, has anyone bothered to ask the chicken directly? Has the chicken refused to grant interviews? Well, being rather shy of chickens, and particularly of talking chickens, I'M not about to be the first to approach the chicken! Therefore, I'll continue to feed the rumor mill by suggesting that the chicken crossed the road...to get an omelet. (THE CHICKEN IS A CANNIBAL!)Florinda Pendley Vasquez
The 3 R's: Reading, 'Riting and Randomness
Obviously because the chicken's mother-in-law told her about a great deli across the street that has the most divine whitefish salad. And you must get it on a pumpernickel bagel with some lettuce. But not tomato because they are just too mushy and mealy this time of year. And after the deli, the chicken has to stop at the drug store which is right next door. Strange because the chicken just went there yesterday. And the day before. But yet, the chicken has once again realized she needs something else. This time she's buying Chiclets peppermint gum and some more Advil because that rooster is way way annoying. The kind of loud, grating bird that does not deserve a bite of her divine whitefish salad.Kelcey Kintner
The Mama Bird Diaries
Dear Ms. Leffler,
We're sorry to inform you that we've been playing a horrible, no good, very bad joke on you for years. Chickens never cross roads. NEVER. They're just too addle-brained to make it to the other side alive. They stay on their own side of the road at all times. They may be a few beers shy of a 6-pack but they have amazing survival instincts. We're sorry to have caused you any pain and anguish worrying about chickens vis-Ã -vis road crossings.
Very truly yours, Geo. Washington and A. LincolnCherylDeckside Thoughts
Because he was in Nevada and there on the other side of the freeway was the famous Chicken Ranch. Of course, being an ignorant fowl, he completely misunderstood what he was looking at. He just figured it'd be a good place to nest for the night, and besides, he was tired and thirsty. As he began to move across the busy highway, he heard what he thought were geese, but he was only semi-correct. Not geese, but diese. As I said, our boy was not too bright and couldn't read all that well, so of course he constantly left letters off words. If he was smart at all, he'd've been a rooster, but he was timid too, so he was always just a little chicken. He made it to the Ranch just in time for dinner. He wasn't the first guy to get completely plucked there, either.
The HumorSmithhumorsmith.com
It depends on whom you ask:
The farmer: To get away from me
The rooster: To get at me
The chef: To be paired with an amazing pinot grigio
The health nut: Because that's where the free range, hormone and chemical free chicken farm is
The vegetarian: That's no chicken. It's an egg factory.
The vegan: Leave the chicken alone! Run, chicken! Run!
The mother: Because I said so
Lisa GoldenThat's Why
Because all four of her little chickens had taken off running with scissors and matches and plastic bags and she had to round them all back up again.
www.hokgardner.com
The question appears to be deceptively simple but is actually enormously complex
and could have a myriad of causes not the least of which might be SEX.
So now we must ask whether the chicken was a rooster or a hen
Because everyone knows that the male and female of the species are apt to behave very differently when,
For one reason or another, their libido is aroused or shall we say tickled,
and also we have to determine whether or not the bird in question might have been even slightly pickled;
Because liquor can make even the most straight laced and demure little hen into an lascivious hussy
who would not be feeling the least bit fussy,
And might go far out of her way
for what is vulgarly known as a roll in the hay.
While everyone knows that no self respecting rooster
is apt to need any booze as a booster.
When sighting a hen
With a yen
Across the road........
So ends Reason #1 of my Ode.
* (with love and thanks to Ogden Nash)
Lois Stearns-DailyIt's Always Something
To get killed so people would stop asking this question.Suzy Soro
HOLLYWOOD: Where Hot Comes To Die
GOD! I'm so sick of the big deal about the chicken crossing the road! I cross the road multiple times a day, sometimes even clucking, and no one has ever bothered to ask me why. Chicken, chicken, chicken. Everything's about the chicken.Marinka
Motherhood in NYC
Mouthy Housewives
Secret Spineless WhineBecause the other free-range chickens on its side of the median are mean, and it's in a bad mode.Wesley King
The Recycled OrphanThe Momma Chick didn't want to cross the damn road. She was just fine sitting on the park bench with her Diet Dr Pepper and twittering away on her iPhone, but her newly two-year-old chickadee now finds it completely impossible to do anything that would keep the Momma Chick from losing her ever-loving mind. So as the baby chick gets closer and closer to the road, the Momma Chick gets off her butt, stuffs her phone in her pocket and tries to stealthily make her way across the playground before her chickadee is in the middle of the freakin' street. The Momma Chicken is torn between stealth (she knows eye contact with the chick will only increase the speed with which she runs into oncoming traffic) and screaming at the top of her lungs, “YOU STOP RIGHT THERE AND DON'T TAKE ONE MORE STEP OR YOU WILL BE SORRY!” But worries, the latter might raise a few eyebrows in the hen house. So she sneaks, when the chubby little chick looks up, makes eye contact and grins from ear to ear with mischief in her deceptively blue eyes, the Momma Chick has no choice but to throw down her Diet Dr Pepper and haul her ass across the road.
Robin O'BryantRobin's Chicks
That chicken (rooster, actually) is a friend of mine named of Ferdinand. Since he spends most his time surrounded by nattering hens that just go on and on about every damn thing til his head begins to spin and his comb starts to droop, his handler, Olin Craighead (that’s him with the leash), fixed him up a special place across the road. It’s nothing but a shed. Corrugated tin, rusty, not much to look at. But you see that little dish on the roof? Gets DirecTV and the internet. There's a beat up old leather La-Z-Boy in there and one of those fancy swivel laptop tables that lets Ferdinand recline and access his email and such. It's not easy since his hands are just feathers (ie, not good for much) and his feet are talons that sometimes do more damage to the keyboard than good. But he gets by. He's rigged things to his liking. Here’s Ferdinand’s secret: he likes to look at kittehroulette.com and lolcats. Yes, he's got a thing for cats. He was raised by a barn cat, Mittens, after his mother abandoned him. When Mittens died a couple of years ago, you can imagine how hard Ferdinand took it. Olin fixed Ferdinand up with his own space, got him a computer and taught him how to find kitties. When he stumbled onto lolcats, Ferdinand laughed for the first time in.....well, ages and ages. Seemed like forever since he'd been happy. He came back to himself and, thanks to the internet kitties, Ferdinand is his old cocky self again.
ClaudiaLife in Scribbletown
What the cluck? That's all of 'em!
Thanks again, everyone!!
I sure hope that's organic cotton.
I'll have to check my nanny's schedule.
PTA event-planning committee meeting.
I'm judging you for not driving a hybrid.
Yoga was packed this morning. 
Gotta run, on my way to a bikini wax.
Will there be valet parking?
That weekend is shot - relatives in town.
Where's the nearest Peet's?
Multiple meanings: I'll be laying low after getting my eyes done. 
I'll be coming alone - hubs just got new hair plugs.
Incoming trophy wife.
