Aggie Barnhart and Mabel Alcorn were sitting around the Hen House one afternoon.  Doing what they do.  Aggie was working a crossword puzzle.  Mabel was carving little replica statues of the Easter Island heads.  Hens have to do such things to pass the time.   While laying eggs.  You see…. each of the roughly 280 million laying birds in the U.S. produces from 250 to 300 eggs a year.  By my math… that is about 75 billion eggs a year.  AND…. if you can believe… that is merely  about 10% of the world supply.  That is a whole big bunch of eggs.  And clucks.  Eggs-actly.

So back to the Hen House.  There they were, old Aggie and Mabel, biding time between pushes.  It was nearly 6 p.m.  Again you see….  most eggs are laid between 7 and 11 a.m.   And as you might guess… these things take time.  A hen requires about 24 to 26 hours to produce an egg.     No rest for the weary either.  After the egg is laid, the hen starts all over again about 30 minutes later.  Pretty egg-streme.

But you can only do so many crossword puzzles.

MA:  Aggie, do you want to put in a DVD?
AB:  Sure Mabel.  What do you want to watch?
MA:  Ohhhhhh….. let’s watch Chicken Run.
AB:  Mabel… we have watched Chicken Run 23 times.  So help me, I cannot sit through that movie again.
MA:  But it is such a white-knuckler.  I love a good action-adventure!
AB:  No Mabel.  How about Casablanca?
MA:  Chicken Run.
AB:  Hmm.  What do you think about watching Star Wars?
MA:  Chicken Run.
AB:  Okay, what about The Godfather?
MA:  Chicken Run.
AB:  Psycho?
MA:  Chicken Run.
AB:  Quit being such a stubborn old hen.  I swear, if I had a deep fryer… I’d… I’d……
AB:  Oh…. I would…. ….  …..  umph……..
MA:  Aggie… you know….. YOU are a real Mother Clucker.

Mabel and Aggie watched Chicken Run that evening……  in silence.  Even hens gets their feathers ruffled from time to time.   But.   If you can’t say something nice… it is best to keep your beak shut, I suppose.

And despite it all.  Like good hens.  They laid eggs the next morning at 7:08 and 9:01, respectively.

Thankfully.

Breakfast.

And finally… Mark Twain once said….“Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.”

Clearly…. Twain never tried to pass a bowling ball through the opening in his rear end.  My guess is….. he too…. would cackle as if it were an asteroid.