Safety Notes
If I were ever to teach a personal safety class - Don’t worry, I won’t - one of the very first lessons I would teach would be the importance of not whistling a cheerful tune when walking down a dark alley.
I don't mean to boast, but in my time I’ve walked down plenty of fairly dark alleys, and I’m never particularly worried by it until I start whistling a cheerful tune, and then I scare the bejesus out of myself. Because it’s a well-known fact that when you’re cheerfully whistling is when the hidden zombie/slasher/psychopath attacks. And if you don’t believe me, just watch any movie where there’s a zombie/slasher/psychopath.
For similar reasons, I’ve always advised my own teenagers never to go camping by the spooky lake with their friends, or visit the deserted mental hospital, or break into some old supposedly haunted house on the outskirts of town on Halloween. Should they absolutely feel the need to do any of those things, then I ask that they do it in the morning or afternoon. On some random day in March. Timing, you see, is everything.
I was pondering on this and other completely random matters when taking Arthur out for his constitutional the other day. It was sunny, so I was happy, and there were plenty of butts to sniff, so Arthur was happy too. Then, as we headed down the street just at the side of our house, there was a sudden burst of ominous piano music - like the sound of something that would accompany the jump scare on a horror movie.
Obviously, Arthur and I were not at all scared as it was the middle of the day, and also because we knew where the piano music was coming from - which was our chickens, and likely specifically, our chicken called Nuggets.
You see, we had an old piano we couldn’t get rid of - not even for free. We tried the whole donating/ offering/ pleading thing, and I don't know if you know this, but pianos are quite big and heavy, so we had absolutely no takers. Then one day, I’d been looking out the window, and the chickens had looked a little bored. And suddenly it all made sense.
So we had the piano moved outside for the chickens, and it's been going down a treat.
Chickens enjoy music. So they’ve taken to playing the piano like, well, like chickens taking to playing the piano. Not all of them, obviously. Genghis the rooster is not interested. Margo finds it distasteful. Senga manages to ignore it, and Agatha fails to see the point. But for Velma, Ophelia, Nuggets, Ripley, Vera, and Veronica, the chance to enjoy a little spin on the ivories really brightens up the day.
They don’t play with their fingers, on account of not having any. Instead, they mostly walk up and down the keyboard, pecking at the keys.
Some are more musical than others. Vera and Veronica are both fairly plinky plonky. Ripley prefers the higher keys. Ophelia is really quite dainty, verging on poultry’s answer to Erik Satie, and Nuggets is more a chord than a key bird. And no, it’s not always tuneful, but to be honest, I’ve heard worse from humans at the Edinburgh Fringe.
So when Arthur and I were walking down the street and the threatening chords pounded out, I smiled, picturing a victorious Nuggets. For the first time, it did make me wonder though, what random passersby who do not know of our chickens must think when they suddenly find themselves accompanied by the soundtrack from Jaws.
I consoled myself figuring that the chickens are all in back in the coop when it gets dark, so at least the weird musical accompaniment would only happen during daylight hours. Or so I thought.
The night before last, Mark and I were sitting down to watch TV. It had been a long day and it was dark outside, and I thought there would be nothing better than watching one of my favorite detective shows where there’s a brutal murder, but nobody seems really that bothered about it, and they still have a bake sale.
But we hadn’t even turned the TV on when the scary piano music began to play. It was a little creepy to be honest, because we weren’t expecting it. It definitely sounded like it was coming from our piano in the backyard, but the chickens would all be asleep by now, so it made no sense as to who could be playing it.
I’m not going to lie, we were a little unnerved, so, grabbing a couple of torches, we headed out to investigate. Honestly though, I less expected that a piano-playing zombie/slasher/psychopath was on the loose, and was more concerned that the Opossum who has taken up residence in the outside fireplace has discovered he had a musical flare too. If so, nighttimes could be hellish. (You can sort of reason with a chicken, but there’s no negotiating with an Opossum.)
As it turned out, the culprits were Ripley and Velma, who we found sitting on top of the piano. They looked both startled and defiant in the torchlight. I asked them what they were doing there - which was completely mental of course, because being chickens they totally couldn’t answer.
Everything made sense though, when Genghis huffed over from behind the piano stool. It seemed that as the days get longer, the automatic door on the coop had come down before it was fully dark, and some of the chickens had been left out. And though this could have been a disaster, our intrepid feathery heroines had raised the alarm, with a set of chords Nuggets would be proud of.
Once we had the whole flock settled in for the night, Mark and I went back to watch our detective shows where there are terrible murders but nobody much cares, and they still have bake sales, and I couldn’t help thinking that a whole lot of these terrible murders wouldn’t happen if there was less of the cheerful whistling in dark alleyways, and more chickens playing pianos. Though of course, I do accept that pianos aren’t all that portable really, and not all chickens are attuned to playing.
Anyway, as I drifted off to sleep that night, all was at peace here in Tweddley Manor. And I’m not ashamed to admit it, I was more than just a little proud.
Lynn
Xo
PS: Every time you click on the wee heart emoji, a random passerby is ‘invigorated’ by the plinky plonkiness of Vera and Veronica. Uhm….maybe.
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