The first tribunal was with the chickens.
“According to our records,” the chief justice rooster announced in a loud, screeching voice, assuring he would be heard all the way back to the very last row of the cavernous courtroom, packed with clucking hens and muttering roosters of all kinds and colors.
“According to our records, during your lifetime, you have eaten," he paused with grave solemnity, "the equivalent of 5,693 chickens,” he declared, pointing his beak menacingly at me, his wattles inflated with indignation.
I shivered at the totality of it all.
“The accused will stand before this court.”
I stood.
“Do you wish to make a statement before sentence is passed?”
“Yes,” I barely answered in tremulous voice.
“Proceed.”
Summoning up my courage, knowing there was little I could say that would alter my fate, I cleared my throat, took a deep breath, and at the top of my voice cried out:
“Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!”
~ by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved
The Inland Valley chapter of the Society For Clear Thinking will hold an all-day workshop on “How To Make Life Simple” from 10:20 a.m. to 5:47 p.m. Saturday, March 2, at an undisclosed location.
New members are required to attend an orientation session at 7:48 a.m., in the Thoreau Room of the Simple Gifts Meeting Hall at the Southern California College of Agronomy and Moral Certainty.
After the orientation, exit on Walden Avenue South, past Civil Disobedience Drive, then turn west on Emerson Road and make a U-turn at the third intersection past the green/black student dormitories (If you see the black/green student dormitories you’ve gone too far!), bearing to the right onto Harpers Ferry Way to Parking Lot 81, Section 26 (southeastern quadrant), next to the campus greenhouse.
Walk northeast on Campus Loop toward the Transcendental Arts Building, past the Hell No We Won’t Go food court, turning right at the Gandhi memorial bird bath. Walk straight ahead until you see the second unmarked bus stop and wait for bus No. 331, or 28-A if after 9:15 a.m., or any bus between H-9Q and 12 if after 9:33 a.m.
Exit the bus at Tolstoy Street and walk north on Tolstoy, past the King Cotton Laundromat (on the left) to the Thrifty Chick fried chicken restaurant (on the fourth, north-south corner of the traffic hexagon). Enter Thrifty Chick and say: “Sir Larry has come to collect the poll tax,” if the man at the counter is wearing a hat or an eye patch, or “The goslings weep for their mother” if there is another man without a hat and/or an eye patch, or a woman (mature, no eye patch), behind the counter.
You will be led to the rear of the shop and put into the cargo area of the Thrifty Chick delivery van whose driver will blindfold you and take you to my house where I will then drive you to the meeting. The workshop fee is $20 (stamps).
~ by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved
The first tribunal was with the chickens.
