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Be Careful What You Wish For

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Yesterday’s topics were book clubs and donuts, but in spite of the sophisticated tone of the conversation, Clyde wound up asking for a rubber chicken.

There should be one of these in every rubber pot.

I have a rubber chicken. Doesn’t everyone? This has got to be one of the greatest achievements of our civilization. How did this come about?

And why don’t chickens have rubber humans?

50 thoughts on “Be Careful What You Wish For”

  1. Happy Sunday, Heartlanders!

    Got your basements dry yet? I hope nobody’s car floated too far downstream.

    Since everybody has a rubber chicken, I’ve chosen instead a stuffed crow for my computer desk deco

    Humans do so well at collecting rubber chickens because we appreciate specialty stores, and THE specialty store in this area of the economy is Archie McPhee, a store based in Seattle. Google it and you will find it is far more than a store taking care of all your rubber chicken needs (including a rubber chicken mask, a rubber chicken key chain, etc). Archie McPhee sells cute unicorns with replaceable horns that skewer human figures. They have a Jesus Miracle Action Figure with a jug that turns from water to wine. They’ll sell you a form that lets you prepare toast with the Virgin Mary’s image in it.

    If chickens had such a store, they could have fun collecting rubber humans, but I think they’ll never equal the stunning variety of Archie McPhee. I highly recommend the store and the web site. (Goat products, by the way, are pretty much limited to a singularly hideous set of false teeth.)

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    1. Steve — I’ve seen the plastic uniform and it’s plastic victims. It was so very very hard not to buy it. I think the funniest part is that there is not just a boy victim and a girl victim, but a third mime victim!

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      2. It took me a good bit of looking for those plastic uniforms on the rubber humans before I figured out the part about the unicorn-should have known this was going to be a good day when I get to start with a giggle like that.

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    2. I had a roommate on the Archie McPhee mailing list. Always a fun night when the catalog came – and a little addicting. (Oooh! Lookie at that! I need one!) As much as I miss that roommate, it’s probably for the best that the regular missive from Archie McPhee doesn’t meet my eyes as often.

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  2. Good Morning, ‘Booners
    and Dale, thought you were going to take sundays off!
    re the chicken question: in my brief experience with chickens i didn’t see much broad sense of humor. rubber humans (totally useless to a chicken – i mean, a rubber human isn’t going to feed anything; what use is it?) wouldn’t be something they’d think is funny. my chickens liked to mutter jokes about me while i worked with them. i never understood the subtleties of their humor. i miss having them but Majority and Niblet needed a place away from the Girls to live, so they took over the chicken coop (after a very thorough cleaning and a remodel). maybe again some day.
    my Grandma had a rubber chicken and got a big kick out of it. also had a whoopie cushion. that kind of humor is way too broad for chickens.

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  3. Real chickens may not have rubber humans, but cartoon chickens definitely have cartoon rubber humans. Cartoon chickens also steal cartoon babies (thank you, Gary Larson), and cartoon lobsters sell cartoon humans from refrigerated cases.

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    1. Lisa — good on you for bringing up that important chicken research specialist, Gary Larson. His pioneering work in what goes on among chickens and cows when farmers aren’t paying attention is still the best work of its type ever done. There is a lot of silliness in the mass media about chickens crossing roads. If you would know what is really going on, make Gary Larson your guide.

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      1. Yep, as in the town of Lindstrom. It advertises itself as “Home of the Scandinavian Donut.” It also advertises pretty much every issue going on in Lindstrom, from “which plumbers overcharge?” to “why we should not widen the road thru town.”

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  4. Interesting how many of us so far have checked TB, even though we’re supposedly off on Sundays…. hmmmm.

    I think we need to be careful in assuming that chickens don’t have rubber humans. Do we really know what chickens get up to when we’re not looking?

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    1. a farmer friend once said to me “you don’t want a bored chicken.” these critters are very curious and need an outlet. and many times that outlet is picking on another chicken. we closed our chickens inside (to protect from coyotes/foxes, etc.) at sundown they didn’t get out again until sunrise. i used to hang half-cabbages on twine just above their heads (so they’d have to jump up to peck it) and i put suet behind chicken wire so they could peck on that (went thru about a pound/day for 30 chickens). also put hay down on the snow so they’d go outside a bit during the winter. they also liked to hide eggs. for a couple days i noticed not getting many eggs. i was worried until i accidentally moved a tarp that i had hung to protect from drafts. under a fold was a pile of about 10 eggs (mostly auracana – they are the most devious – “uppity” says my farmer friend).

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  5. See what you have started, Clyde. Here it is EARLY Sunday morning, and I am googling Rubber Chickens because I want to ANSWER THE QUESTION-how did this get started? I haven’t even made coffee yet! You ask for insanity, and look what I am doing. Thanks a heap, Clyde.

    Hope your very sensible wife and daughter are having a good visit-so glad that has worked out.

    My first thought is to recall Jacque’s tale of woe with the incinerated cinnamon rolls and caution one and all against putting that rubber pot on their stove, unless that sort of mess and stench is the sort of thing they are up for.

    Sadly, this is a question for which there seems to be no answer. Wikipedia has nothing definitive, and most of my googling turned up more questions and no real answers. At last, the internet has been found wanting!

    Have to agree with barb on her assessment of the value of a rubber human to real chickens.

    Archie McPhee-the go to place for theatre techs-have never perused their on-line catalog and am not going to start now, because, well, I do have a day ahead of me and won’t get to it if I start looking at that!

    I’m going to seek some clarity in my coffee pot now.

    Yes, Dale, what happened to Sunday off, couldn’t the chicken have waited until Monday? No, I suppose not….

    Will check in later to see where this goes.

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    1. Yes, Catherine. Exactly. The chicken couldn’t wait. It felt like Clyde needed to see one ASAP. And it’s not like REAL work to take a picture of a rubber chicken and post it on the internet. Technically, this is still a day off.

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      1. Well, if Jesus felt it was ok to heal someone on the Sabbath, providing a much needed rubber chicken would probably fall under the same rubric.

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  6. I’ve always wondered why rubber chickens always seem to be plucked and stretched out. Why not a nice, plump chicken with its (molded rubber) feathers?…a round, plump chicken would do just as well for whacking (someone/something) as a long, skinny one.

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    1. Well, they do look a lot like the one’s I’ve seen hanging in the window in butcher shops in Chinatown, and I imagine that was a pretty common sight during the vaudeville era, when it seems they first came to prominence.

      Besides, I think a plucked chicken better fits the latex medium-I just don’t think latex feathers would fly with most people.

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    2. There’s probably a good joke in there somewhere about rubber chickens and flying (or at least a sharp retort of “when rubber chickens fly!”)…but not had enough coffee yet to formulate it.

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  7. Without a thing to contribute this morning, I find myself rubbernecking as I watch the avian hilarity ensue.

    Gary Larson is a hero of mine. One of my favorites, spoken by one chicken to another while sitting on beach chairs holding umbrella drinks: “Man, they made me a free-range chicken and I never looked back.”

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  8. Greetings! Is this a chicken joke?! Is it? I remember JoAnn Worley from Laugh-In — that was one of her schticks — getting agitated over chicken jokes. Man, I loved that show.

    Yes, Sherrilee, it’s interesting how many of us still check in EARLY on Sunday morning. Just to see what might have been said late at night or if Dale just maybe posted something on a Sunday. Obviously, we’re all hopelessly addicted to this place. Ah, well there are worse things we could be doing. I don’t do coffee, but I’m having my morning protein smoothie.

    Whatever chickens may have in terms of personality, curiosity, humor, irony, etc., they do not have prehensile hands (or feet). Despite the depiction of intelligent, prehensile poultry on “Chicken Run,” this is an unfortunate falsehood. Therefore, it stands to reason they do not have the ability to manufacture rubber humans. Oh, I’m sure they mutter about it amongst themselves and discuss how to “serve man” in retaliation. But for now, we humans have the upper hand and can hope it will be a very long time indeed before we turn into “Planet of the Chickens.”

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  9. We bought a rubber chicken like that for a dog toy, and our Welsh Terrier was terrified of it. It squeaked if it was squeezed it, and it refilled with air so slowly it twitched, making it look alive. She barked at it and danced around it but wouldn’t touch it. I put it in her dog bed, and she removed it by pulling the blanket on which it was resting off of her bed-she wouldn’t even touch it with her mouth. She tried to nip me when I tried to pick it up-I believe she was trying to protect me, and when I put it in a closet she sat by the closet door staring intently, refusing to move away. We finally had to give it to the Corgi across the street to give our poor dog some peace of mind. This of course, is the same dog who we found barking at a taco she had stolen from the table. It was full of jalepeno peppers and it must have burned her mouth when she tried to eat it. I guess she thought it had bit her.

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    2. My previous basset hound was deathly afraid of helium balloons, especially the mylar ones. She wouldn’t go near them – just growled and snarled from across the room. She however, would not have had the sense to quit eating the taco to bark at it.

      Funny dog, Renee!

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      1. wanna drive her nuts? scotch tape pennies to the mylar balloon until the weight is just right for it to hover around the house about beltbuckle high. then tomorrow when a little helium is gone take off one pennie and it will float again for a day. great way to make the most of the last week or so of the balloon. and the bassett will be cowering.

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    4. On a more somber note, the chicken was from China, and I have a horrible feeling that my dog was sensing harmful chemicals in that chicken that raised her hackles. The instructions on the chicken warned against too much contact with one’s skin.

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  11. Oh, and thank you, Dale, for chicken. I am contemplating what I should ask for next, virutality only, of course.

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  13. I am not sure if chickens care for the ‘rubber human’ shtick, but I know they are into slapstick. My niece, Anna, and I were driving down the back road to town when we came upon a red-crested white rooster which had been run over. I mean this poor animal was flat as a pancake! We decided that on our return trip we would pick up the carcass of the rooster, take it home and bury it. Thirty minutes later as we drove home, we spotted the rooster – up, lurching around on the road as if he had been on a three day bender, and crowing – all with a very mean look in his eye. We could hardly believe it, but there he was! We had been in a somber mood on the ride home, thinking about the poor rooster, but we burst out laughing when we saw him all in a huff and angrily crowing away at the world.
    And then there was the time when early one morning Aunt Thelma tried to chase a chicken back into the hen house. No problem – until the chicken got under her flannel nightgown. Her husband was there, too, but couldn’t help her because he was laughing so hard. Yep, without a doubt, chickens are into slapstick humor.

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  14. Chicken for Sunday how appropriate. If there’s a chicken for every pot and the chicken is rubber is the pot rubber too?

    At work we have rubber ducks, They are lined up along the lab windows, There are probably 30 of them given out by instrument companies and added to at holidays by folks like me. Rubber Santa ducks etc are among the most commented items when we give tours to visitors. When folks ask why we have all the ducks, I answer, “Because we are very precise and like to keep all of our ducks in a row.”

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  15. Chickens are just plain silly. I have a rooster that gets into the pen every night, but can’t get out in the morning until I go let it out… or perhaps he just thinks of me as his servent?

    We had one chicken claim to fame; the now defunct Theater de la Juene Lune needed a chicken for their production of “Mefistofele”. Through a friend of a friend they contacted me. I took ‘head shots’ of several chickens, the director picked ‘Rita’ and an understudy ‘Venus’ and they lived at the theater for about 6 weeks for rehearsals and production. Rita became a stage diva and Venus, who never did get her chance in the spotlight, became rightfully jealous and would lash out at Rita after every performance when Rita returned to the pen.

    I may have told these stories before… sorry about that if I did.

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    1. Ben — you’re fine, haven’t heard that one before — what a hoot! So now we know that chickens are also *hams* and enjoy the theatre and acting gigs. What will we learn next?

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    2. First I’ve heard it and I would remember a medieval morality tale like that. Anyway, it would stand to a up to a second telling. One of my vivid childhood memories, another morality tale, is before we had indoor plumbing. My sister Cleo was carrying water from the well as part of her daily chores. She would have been about 7 or 8. The rooster chased her and she ran all the way to the back door screaming with the rooster pecking at her bare legs. But she never put down the pail.

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  17. For all those keeping track…

    We arrived at our New Brighton friends’ house circa 2am Sunday. Woke up to unhitch the car trailer in order to find the Canada landing documents and husband’s wallet (we were hoping the packers had thrown those items in a random box despite instructions, amongst the umpteen other boxes in the back of the moving truck). Thank heavens for friends who are generous with their weekend hours.

    The rest of the glorious afternoon was spent in the lake. 😉

    Heading up to the Iron Range to collect more belongings tomorrow!

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    2. i was listening for your honk, enjoy the range. perfect time to visit. where exactly again? was it grand rapids? i like the mn tx on but we should include indonesia also. in mn tx on dont you think?

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    3. Clyde & tim —

      We’re heading to Chisholm to see the in-laws, who have our winter clothes, an air compressor and other items I’m sure I’m forgetting.

      I was thinking about MN-TX-ON too. Sounds a bit like an oil company! And adding Malaysia (.my) to make MY-MN-TX-ON sounds like the customer service login page for said oil company. Also, if we were to be strictly accurate, I would be MY-AB-MN-TX-ON, for the little town of Calgary where I went to med school. And that’s just getting out of control.

      Naming procedure gets so warped in my force field!

      Maybe I will have to be MYNON, which has the benefit of incorporating my initials (MYN) as well as the places I felt/feel most at home.

      by the way tim, I had a dream last night that someone came up to me in an old-fashioned candy store with glass jars and introduced himself to me as “tim”.

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