It’s time for Chickenman to put an end to crime in the area

I’ve been thinking about putting on a yellow leotard, silk cape and mask. My plan is to run around the neighborhood fighting crime. Maybe not run; I’ll walk around the neighborhood at a leisurely pace.

We don’t have much crime in my rural neighborhood – the houses are too far apart for most criminals to bother with – but it seems a shame to waste my recently-discovered super power. Fighting crime seems like a good way to utilize that ability.

No, I can’t leap tall buildings with a single bound or run faster than a speeding locomotive. Far as I know, bullets don’t bounce off me. And despite the purchase of a pair of X-Ray Specs back in fourth grade, I can’t see through walls (or Patty Tineman’s blouse, as was my intent when I ordered the specs from the back page of an Archie comic way back when).

My super power, sadly, is a little more … um … subtle. It’s along the lines of lamer super heroes, like Aquaman, who could, if memory serves, talk to fish. Now, anyone can talk to a fish, but only Aquaman could make himself fully understood and get fish to do his bidding.

My power is kind of like that. I can’t communicate with fish, and for the life of me I have no idea why anyone would want to. But I can, apparently, commune with chickens.

More importantly, I can get chickens to do what I want them to do. Not all the time, but often enough that I think we can all agree the skill rates as a “super power.”

At present, I have only eight chickens. But if The Lovely Mrs. Taylor gets her way, we’ll soon have more. After our visit recently to the 4-H Fair, Mrs. T has decided we need to expand our chicken “operation.”

Tomorrow I start work on a new, greatly expanded enclosure, which will soon be populated with enough poultry to keep Colonel Sanders supplied for the next five years. If I can coerce these new birds to do my bidding like the ones I already have, I am in business.

When we brought home our eight chicks, they were just little yellow balls of fluff. Now they’re big, squawking chickstrosities that spend most of their day running around the back yard eating bugs and digging in Mrs. T’s garden.

But when I step outside, they immediately swarm to me, gathering around my ankles and following me wherever I go. Without meaning to, I have somehow trained these chickens to trail after me like rats after the Pied Piper. They can’t get enough of me!

Now, a Spandex-clad super hero leading a measly eight chickens isn’t going to be able to fight much crime. But multiply those chickens by ten or so … that’s a lot of pecking power.

I’ll admit chickens are not exactly equipped to strike terror into the hearts of evil doers; that would be Batman’s deal. But an ARMY of chickens, all following me and ready to dive into the fray at my least command? Oh, baby, I pity the criminal who takes on me and my fearsome cluckers.

Best of all, my army works for – you guessed it – chicken feed. And they make eggs, which is a bonus. Even my eight, current chicks make more eggs than I can reasonably eat. When I have 80 birds? Yow! So I’ll make sure my bright yellow costume comes equipped with an egg-thrower of some sort, something along the lines of Spiderman’s web-shooter, only with eggs.

It won’t be long before local police are reporting the arrests of dozens of egg-encrusted would-be burglars, car thieves and people who intentionally take up more than one parking space at the grocery.

It would have been cool if I’d been able train a bunch of wolves or panthers or something impressive like that. But I work with what I got. If it’s chickens, it’s chickens.

My secret crime-fighting life as Chickenman may not get me on the cover of my own comic book, but it still beats talking to fish.

MTaylor325@gmail.com

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