Beyonce the Painted Metal Chicken

daughnworks247  May 4, 2019 5 Minutes

My family is full of pranksters, and we find humor in odd places. We delight in the mundane and tend to make our own fun. Grandma Della and Daddy kept books by Mike Royko, Erma Bombeck, Lewis Grizzard, and Dave Barry, in every bathroom. Their humor inspired us and after all, “Laughter is the Best Medicine”.

The following story is NOT mine, but it’s too good to pass up. If I am to share with you pieces of my life, then the story of “Beyonce the Metal Chicken” is a mandatory read. We retell the story every July 4th, and howl with laughter. The story became “a thing” among my set of girlfriends and we all own smaller versions of Beyonce – my Beyonce sits on my kitchen windowsill and I still giggle every time I look at it. One girlfriend made me a suncatcher ornament for my kitchen window….. of a chicken. And yes, the girls hit pay dirt when we found chicken-printed Christmas wrapping paper for our gag gifts. The writer of this story, a New Jersey girl, would have definitely been a girlfriend. Our husbands laugh, but they understand and still love us…… which is why we love them. Here is the link to the original blog post: Link to Beyonce.

Grab a cup of coffee and a box of Kleenex. The story does have a few curse words, fair warning. Settle in. Here we go………..

And that’s why you should learn to pick your battles.

JUNE 21, 2011

in RANDOM CRAP

This morning I had a fight with Victor about towels. I can’t tell you the details because it wasn’t interesting enough to document at the time, but it was basically me telling Victor I needed to buy new bath towels, and Victor insisting that I NOT buy towels because I “just bought new towels“. Then I pointed out that the last towels I’d bought were hot pink beach towels, and he was all “EXACTLY” and then I hit my head against the wall for an hour.

Then Laura came to pick me up so we could go to the discount outlet together, and as Victor gave me a kiss goodbye he lovingly whispered, “You are not allowed to bring any more goddam towels in this house or I will strangle you“.   And that was exactly what I was still echoing through my head an hour later, when Laura and I stopped our shopping carts and stared up in confused, silent awe at a display of enormous metal chickens, made from rusted oil drums.

Laura:  I think you need one of those.

me:  You’re joking, but they’re kind of horrifically awesome.

Laura: I’m not joking. We need to buy you one.

me:  The 5-foot tall one was $300, marked down to $100.  That’s like, $200 worth of chicken for free.

Laura:  You’d be crazy not to buy that.  I mean, look at it. IT’S FULL OF WHIMSY.

me:  Victor’d be pissed.

Laura:  Yup.

me:  But on the plus side?  It’s not towels.

Laura:  Yup.

me:  We will name him Henry.  Or Charlie.  Or O’Shannesy.

Laura:  Or Beyoncé.

me:  Or Beyoncé. Yes.  And when our friends are sad we can leave him at their front door to cheer them up.

Laura:  Exactly. It’ll be like, “You thought *yesterday* was bad?  Well, now you have a enormous metal chicken to deal with.  Perspective.  Now you have it.”

Then we flagged down a salesman, and we were all “What can you tell us about these chickens?”, as if we were in an art gallery, and not in a store that specializes in last years’ bathmats.  He didn’t know anything about them, but he said that they’d only only sold one and it was to a really drunk lady, and then Laura and I were all “SOLD.  All this chicken belongs to us now.”

So he loaded it onto a trolley, but Beyoncé was surprisingly unstable, and the giant 5 foot metal chicken crashed over onto the floor.  And Laura and I were all “CHICKEN DOWN!  CLEAN-UP IN AISLE 3” but he didn’t laugh.  Then the manager came to see what was causing all the commotion, and that’s when he found the very-conservative salesman unhappily struggling to right an enthusiastically pointy chicken which was almost as tall as he was.  The salesman was having a hard time, and he told everyone to stand back “because this chicken will cut you“, and at first I thought he meant it as a threat, like “That chicken has a shiv”, but turns out he just meant that all the chickens’ ends were sharp and rusty.  It was awesome, and Laura and I agreed that even if we got tetanus, this chicken had already paid for himself even before we got it in her truck.

Then we got to my house and quietly snuck the chicken up to my front door, rang the doorbell, and hid around the corner.

Victor opened the door and looked at the chicken in stunned silence for about 3 seconds.  Then he sighed, closed the door and walked away.

Laura:  What the fuck?  That’s it?  That’s the only reaction we get?

me:  That’s it. He’s a hard man to rattle.

Victor was surprisingly pissed that I’d “wasted money” on an enormous chicken, because apparently he couldn’t appreciate the hysterical value of a 5 foot chicken ringing the doorbell.  Then I said, “Well, at least it’s not towels” and apparently that was the wrong thing to say because that’s when Victor screamed and stormed off, but I knew he was locked in his office because I could hear him punching things in there.  Then I yelled through his door, “It’s an anniversary gift for you, asshole.  Two whole weeks early.  15 YEARS IS BIG METAL CHICKENS.”

Then he yelled that he wanted it gone, but I couldn’t move it myself, so instead I said okay and went to watch tv.  Then when the UPS guy came I hid, but he was all “Dude.  Nice chicken” and Victor yelled, “IT IS NOT A NICE CHICKEN”.  Which was probably very confusing to the UPS guy, who was just trying to be polite, Victor. Victor seemed more disgruntled than usual, so I finally dragged the chicken into the backyard and wedged it into a clump of trees so that it could scare the snakes away.  Then I came in and Victor angrily pulled me into his office so that I could see that I’d stationed Beyoncé directly in front of his only window.  And I was all “Exactly. YOU’RE WELCOME.”  I told him that he could move Beyoncé if he wanted to, but he totally hasn’t.  Probably because of all of the giant rocks I piled on Beyonce’s feet to dissuade burglars.  Or possibly because Beyoncé is growing on him.  Still, I can’t help but think that we wouldn’t even be having this argument if Beyoncé was towels.  Honestly, this whole chicken is really a lesson in picking your battles more carefully.  Plus, he’s awesome and I can’t stop giggling every time I look at him.  Beyoncé, that is.

Best. 15th anniversary. ever.

UPDATED 2012: It’s been half a year and people still continue to laugh, scream indignantly and to ask questions, so here are a few follow-ups.  Victor and I are still (of course) happily married and after a few weeks he got over his giant rooster aversion.  Beyonce stares at him from outside his office window.  I eventually got new towels.  “Knock-knock, motherfucker” is embroidered on all of them.  Victor was not impressed.  Beyonce-the-giant-metal-chicken now has her own Facebook page with over 30,000 highly imaginative fans, and you can buy your own travel-sized Beyonce right here for under $20.  You’re welcome world.  Now please stop yelling at me.

And that’s our story of Beyonce, the Metal Chicken.