cock-a-doodle-don't make me kill you

roosters I can tolerate:

the sriracha rooster - i find the sauce that he represents to be spicy and delightful. i'm not sure what the rooster has to do with the sauce, but i'm FOR IT. team sriracha rooster!

The Kellog's rooster - a very familiar face from my childhood, this rooster is not overly annoying, and is relatively pleasant to be around. i like that over the years, he's evolved and changed his look multiple times...in fact, i believe in the 80's, he didn't even have a face....but i digress.... i enjoy this rooster's company, because it usually means i'm eating something delicious. with a spoon.

Foghorn Leghorn (or, you may know him by his full name: Foghorn J., I say, Foghorn J. Leghorn) - star of very popular cartoons since the late 1940's - he is entertaining and endearing, with his good ol' boy charm. who wouldn't love him? he's adorable.

ceramic rooster. it's colorful. it's not getting in your face. it's not running around all "hey! look at me! look at me!" - it's just doing the job it was put on the earth to do: decorating. probably at someone's grandmother's house, or at some charming country inn in some tiny, southern town (my grandmother had many, many ceramic roosters in HER house, but mostly because i bought them for her as jokes...that's another story completely). the ceramic rooster: harmless.

what do ALL of these roosters have in common?

i've never heard any of these roosters crow. (disclaimer: i have never seen EVERY work that features Foghorn Leghorn, so, for all I know, he probably DID crow at some point, but I only ever recall the dude talking, so i'm still categorizing him as a non-crower. DEAL WITH IT)

why am i even talking about roosters?? because someone in my neighborhood has one. and it crows. ALL DAY LONG. i say it's someone in my neighborhood, but really, i suppose it could be anyone within a mile or two of our house - all i know is that the crowing sounds very, very close, and it's very, very loud. and irritating.

i grew up in the country, in the middle of a farm, but (contrary to common misconceptions) we didn't have chickens and roosters running around. i didn't wake up for school every morning because a rooster perched himself on my windowsill and crowed into my face. i'm not used to roosters, and personally, if this is what roosters are about, then i'm not a fan. today, as i was washing dishes, i opened the window in the kitchen because the weather was so nice, and after the rooster screamed bloody murder for the 25th time, i grumpily slammed the window shut and mumbled "fucking bird" under my breath, along with a quiet promise to hunt him down and kill him. not that i'd ever really kill a rooster just for being loud and obnoxious.....but if he were to, i dunno, say something mean about my mom, i'd obviously have to defend her honor.

anyway, i started thinking about everything i've ever seen or read about roosters, and people would love for you to believe that they only scream their balls off when it's dawn. if that's the case, then someone needs to clue in a certain rooster here in thetford to the fact that he's totally committing a social faux pas repeatedly every day. he crows, on average, once every 90 seconds. that's insanity. almost as insane as the fact that i counted how many times he crowed over a 15 minute period and then averaged it out. WHAT IS THIS ROOSTER'S PROBLEM? is he practicing for some competition that i don't know about? is he having some sort of nervous breakdown? is he confused that there is so much more sunlight recently, and he's just not used to seeing it? does he have the hiccups? does he have multiple personalities? can roosters have tourettes? is someone hurting him? is someone tickling him?

more importantly, WHO HAS A ROOSTER INA RESIDENTIAL AREA?

as i sat here this afternoon, being mad at the rooster, i was reminded of another annoying bird from my past: the andy griffith parakeet.

the second time i moved to orlando, my neighbors in my apartment building had this parakeet that lived in a cage on their balcony. the bird was quiet most of the time, but every morning around 6:30, right before my alarm would go off, the parakeet would start whistling the theme song to the andy griffith show, and whistle it over and over and over for at least an hour and a half (i only know this because he would still be whistling when i would leave for work at 8:00). at first i thought it was cute, and i assumed it was something that only happened rarely (like, maybe his owners just got an andy griffith box set and had a marathon watch party or something, so the bird was obsessed with the song right then), but i lived in that apartment for 4 months, and can't remember a morning that he DIDN'T do his little andy griffith routine (and let me tell you, when you have a hangover, it was ANYTHING but cute). i became very resentful of the bird, and each time i'd walk past the balcony he was on, i'd curse him under my breath, or daydream about knocking his cage over, or throwing things at him.....i think he sensed it, too. maybe that's why he kept whistling.....because deep down he knew I'd never be able to bring myself to actually hurt him, no matter how annoying he was

.....and maybe the rooster keeps crowing because he can sense my hatred for him. Maybe he's rubbing it in my face. But, i'm sure i can't be the only one in this neighborhood or surrounding ones that hears and subsequently hates this rooster....and I'll bet it's safe to say that not everyone is as nice as me.

Muhammad Ali once said "A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he'll never crow" - maybe i can buy the rooster a hoodie and some wayfarers, and he won't realize it's daytime....or maybe i'll tape an umbrella large enough to always block his view of any sunlight to his head....

i guess this is just one more reason i need to get a job.... preferably one that doesn't get me home until the sun has set.