BEWARE OF CHICKENS!

A coven of chickens plotting to murder humans.

Yesterday I mentioned the SUPERSHOES I have created and pointed out that one of their many, many, many, many benefits was their ability to help wearers escape from chickens (among other dangerous animals). Many readers contacted me to scoff at me. “Pshaw! Andy Lam,” they wrote, “yes, there are dangerous animals in the world but chickens are not dangerous!”

Such incendiary language! I was agast! Do people have no sense of decency? Do they not realize that attacking me in such a brutal and unwarranted way is hurtful and unjust! Clearly they do not or they wouldn’t have done it! A smaller man might have lashed back, fighting “fire with fire” so to speak; but I am not a small man. (It is true that in the course of various experiments I have been smaller than I am now but normally I am a normal size person.) Instead of lashing out, I have decided to use this moment of misunderstanding among some of my “gentle” readers as a “teaching” moment to educate these readers (and you readers) about the danger of chickens.

It is appropriate that I take this action today as it is #NationalFriedChickenDay, a day we celebrate the subjugation and punishment of these fearsome feathered fiends! To this noble end, I offer you the following list of chickens’ many transgressions against humanity! Read it and see if you don’t agree that these birds are a scourge on all humanity!

1. When chickens are born they hide inside an armoured shell, lest their many enemies attack and kill them before they emerge, ready to fight!
2. When chickens “hatch” (i.e. break out of their tiny fortress) they attempt to hide their true aggressive nature by using a disguise that many foolish people deem “cute” or “adorable.” This is dastardly and dishonest of them!
3. As they grow, chickens give up the soft downy coat that lures the gullible and replace it with sharp and dangerous feathers!
4. Not only do chickens have sharp and dangerous features but they also have terrible talons that can be used to rip and tear their enemies!
5. Don’t even get me started on their “beaks!” Their face is a malformed freakshow of feathers, beady eyes and a terrible claw-like mouth that is sharp and ready to peck and bite!
6. Chickens do not fly like other birds. This is unnatural. Instead, the creep along the ground and hide beneath bushes waiting to strike when a hapless human passes too close. In some cases their evil cackling can be heard and can serve as a warning, allowing a vigilant person to beat a hasty retreat.
7. When chickens do attack, they leap from the ground using their large and powerful (but ineffectual for flight) wings to zero in on a human face! Slashing with their dangerous features, ripping with their mighty talons and pecking with their curved and grotesque beaks!
8. These type of chicken attacks are horrific. One or two chickens are enough to maim an adult human. A flock of these callous creatures - four or more - can easily kill a man! And when they do they think it’s something to crow about! They are willing to stand on the still-chest of their dead adversary, spread their foolish but fearsome wings and call and cackle as if they’ve done something wonderful!
9. When chickens have no humans to attack they fight amongst themselves to hone their deadly skills. These fights are highly structure and are usually conducted among the most dominant males in the flock. So called “cock fights” (a name the chickens use specifically to drive the stake of fear deep into the hearts of men) are terrible and bloody affairs that often end in the death of one or both combatants. Does their bloodlust know no end!
10. Chickens never sleep. Unlike most creatures, which require regular periods of unconsciousness to function, chickens are always awake and are always looking for an opportunity to attack.
11. If a hapless youngster is skipping merrily along a forest path at twilight they are a perfect target for the chickens. Swooping down from the branches or a small tree or shrub a flock of chickens can peck and slash and flap the poor tyke to a  grisly end in mere moments. KEEP CHILDREN AWAY FROM ALL CHICKENS!
12. Some chickens hold some humans in virtual bondage. The chickens connive to have the humans create great palaces for them, with rooms for each chicken and food and water delivered regularly. The chickens “repay” this human kindness by defecating an “egg” which is simply a packet of the most disgustingly viscous material known. And some foolish humans look about this “payment” as a treat or treasure!
13. In the wild, however, or any time chickens must fend for themselves, they demonstrate their true crafty and homicidal nature. Chickens will dart across roads and alleys, hide beneath bushes, roost in trees or gather in caves. As they attack and kill humans (and, dare I say, eat their flesh) the chickens grow and grow and grow to monstrous dimensions. The largest chickens (which, thankfully, are very rare) can grow to several dozen feet tall and thousands of pounds. These mega-chickens, operating in highly organized and efficient kill teams can decimate a human settlement in a matter of hours, destroying cars and houses and snuffing out all humans in sight.
14. Mega-chickens are also immune to most human weapons. Bullets simply bounce off their iron-like feathers. Even explosives fail to dent these terrible creatures protective coating! If a mega-chicken infestation is suspected, typically the only recourse is a full military assault with cruise missiles, tanks, helicopter gunships and flamethrowers and even this is no guarantee of success!
15. In the worst mega-chicken ever recorded, in the dusty desert town of Alamogordo, New Mexico, the United States Army deployed the first atomic bomb! The chickens were vanquished (of course!) but at what price? This action - necessary though it may have been - set off a worldwide arms race of continually escalating chicken-killing technologies that still haunt us today.

Far from being the docile farmyard fowl that their propagandists hope to portray them as, chickens are smart and malevolent and are bent on our destruction! It is no surprise then that humans, when given the chance, kill these terrible creatures with abandon! We kill them and rip out their dangerous features and gut them and dismember them and cook them - a burnt offering to keep these animals at bay.

It is a losing battle.

Here in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA as many as 9,000,000,000 chickens are killed every year and yet their numbers never diminish! Across the whole world there are far, far, Far, FAr, FAR more chickens than humans and unless we are constantly vigilant the chickens will use their superior numbers, deadly beaks and talons and matchless bloodlust to destroy us all! So yes, celebrate #NationalFriedChickenDay. Pretend that we humans are in control - but know they are out there in their billions, plotting in their sleepless minds and prepared to kill us all!

Hoping I am wrong but knowing I am right (as always!) . . .

ANDY LAM!

Summer is Here! Beware!

The dreadful green of summer!

This morning my astronomers rushed into my room before dawn. They were right to do so. They came to alert me that summer would soon arrive and with it fresh dangers. You see, while all of the other season have their own threats, none can hold a candle to the summer! I remember as a lad (a time of which I will opine at length in my memoir) already knowing the unsavory character of the warm summer months.

Let me now list just a few of the things that I beg you to beware of!

• Sea Monsters - while Massachusetts has its troopers to protect people from this danger most states do nothing, NOTHING, to prevent the creatures of the deep from arriving on the land to cause pain and mayhem!
• Increased Traffic - so many people seem to have so much time on their hands that they can think of nothing better to do than to get behind the wheel (or handlebars) of their cars, trucks, SUVs, crossovers, compacts, sub-compacts, saloons, convertibles, big rigs, bicycles, motorcycles, motorscooters, mopeds, super cars, unicycles, buses, airplanes, trains, balloons, ships, motorboats, sailboats, submarines, helicopters, hang gliders, surf boards, boogie boards and all of the other ridiculous contraptions they use for conveyance. Not only does all of this vehicular hubbub interfere with my far more important travel plans but it also creates an absolute din that makes it difficult to think clearly.
• Insects - speaking of absolute din, these small creatures "punch way above their weight" in the noise department. Chirping crickets, buzzing bees, annoying gnats, maddening mosquitos - all  of them cause no end of distraction and bother!
• Lines - when I attempt to go to my favorite attractions during the summer months, be it the mirthful zoo, the edifying museum, the babbling brook, the majestic waterfall, the quaint seaside village, the mighty mountains, the empty desert, the delicious ice cream stand, the entertaining movie house, the dutiful blood bank, the lazy river I am confronted with lines and crowds, crowds and lines. People are everywhere and all of them (with seemingly nothing better to do) are delaying my pleasure! This is very difficult for me to bear.
• The Color Green - this is, perhaps, an odd pet-peeve of mine but the color green, especially the restful, dappled green of the forrest, the rolling green meadows, the foaming green of the sea - all of it fills me with a sense of loneliness, which can only be eradicated by radical color therapy. (This is something I am very passionate about and of which I shall write at a later day - you can put THAT in your pipe and smoke it (but, actually, you shouldn't smoke).)
• Canned Soft Drinks - yes, you can find canned soft drinks year round but for some reason in the summer I cannot consume enough of these sweet and carbonated beverages. Why should that bother me? Because canned soft drinks, I am told by my dental team, can cause tooth decay; and if there's one thing I dread more than anything - more than pain or loss or death or failure or poverty or the disappearance of my favorite things or a penny turned face down or little burnt potatoes or puppies without tags being found wandering on the street by themselves or big barking dogs or a car horn that surprises me or being tickled by a stranger when I am just trying to buy a hot dog at a baseball game to the point that I have (on more than one occasion) lost control of my bladder or finding glitter or getting a scary fortune in a fortune cooking at a Chinese restaurant or anything that is too dreadful even to mention - more than any of these things I dread tooth decay. A wise woman once told me that the teeth really are the window onto the soul (at least I think it was teeth) and having them decayed or disfigured or discolored or with holes in them means that there is a deeper and potentially more dreadful problem. For most of the year I can avoid canned soft drinks but I am helpless in the summer time. 

It is for these reasons - sea monsters, increased traffic, insects, lines, the color green and canned soft drinks that I abhor the summer.

Thankfully, because I am ANDY LAM! I do not need to suffer these indignities! For I have learned from my geographers that there is another part of the world where it is not the summer. This part of the world is called the "southern hemisphere" and it is at the bottom of the globe. 

I have decided, therefore, to travel to this other planet that is so close to the earth that you can get to it in only a few days. I will stay there until the horrible summer of my planet vanishes and I can be at peace again. I will be writing while I am on this planet, whose lucky people are free from the terror of summer, so you will not have to worry. 

Before I leave for my trip, however, I would like to share a poem with you about the summer that I think you will love. I know I love it. I love it because I wrote it and I love everything that I do!

Summer is here! Beware!

Summer is here! Beware!

Beware the sea monsters - this is their time!

Beware the traffic - snaking in long lines like terrible serpents ready to choke us to death!

Beware the bugs and insects - they make annoying noises and some of them bite!

Beware lines - they will make you wait longer than you want to have fun!

Beware the color green - it is a verdant assault on the eyes! Eeeek!

Beware canned soft drinks - they can contribute to tooth decay!

Summer is here! Beware!

I think that about "sums" things up.

Packing my space ship for the trip to the summer-free southern planet, I am . . .

ANDY LAM!