(A Short Story With a Tasty Ending)
(1 minute, 3 seconds)
Once upon a time, there was a rooster named Sleepy. Now, I have heard honest reports of gentle and friendly roosters. Sleepy, however, was the other kind of rooster; the kind that strutted about his domain, thinking it really was his domain, and terrifying children that he chased around “his” yard. Sleepy was my sweet friend Julie’s rooster. Julie’s adorable grandchildren were the object of Sleepy’s rooster wrath.
One day, Julie’s darling grandson was lamenting the fact that Sleepy was a chaser of children and a downright mean chicken.
My friend assured her beloved grandchild that if Sleepy was mean to him again, she would turn that rooster into “Sleepy Pot Pie”! In essence, she assured her grandson that he was eminently more important to her than her chicken.
Later that morning the grandson was in the yard near the coop. Mean to the bone with no hope of changing his feathers, Sleepy, set in his ways, took off after that grandson. Instinctively he raced to his grandfather who was practicing archery nearby in the yard. Like his kind grandmother, this granddad adored his grandson.
“Grandpa!” he wailed, “Sleepy is being mean again!!”
Grandpa squatted low next to this grandson that he treasured. “Do you want me to get him?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye, gesturing to his lowered bow.
“YES!” the grandson cheered, jumping up and down with glee.
Grandpa pulled an arrow from his pack, set it…. locked his sights on the strutting rooster… and shot him dead!
True to her word, Grandma turned Sleepy into a pot pie, and he was eaten that evening for dinner.
The End.
A few morals to this true story?
- Names can be deceptive (“Sleepy” the rooster).
- Hero’s can look a lot like Grandpa’s.
- It’s delicious when Grandma’s keep their word.
(photo: Unsplash, Wolfgang Hasselmann)