Furniture and Fowl

The most fabulous news I heard all week last week was that Friday Night Out was on for this past Friday night. After another week of snow and being cooped up at home, we were all ready for some socialization and time out of the house. We dropped Caedmon off at church and went to dinner with Brandon and Jill.

We went to Hu Hot. It was good. And let me just say that it is not a good thing to let a pregnant woman loose at a buffet-type place. I definitely popped some Tums as soon as we got home.

Brandon and Jill came over and we played dominoes. Husband mentioned that he was trying to find a new home for our futon and Brandon suggested Craig’s List. So Husband listed it that night before he went to bed.

Since my guys let me sleep in on Saturdays, by the time I got up, Husband had no less than a dozen people who wanted the futon. It’s a great piece of furniture, but I’m still amazed at the market for used futons. The first guy who’d contacted him was able to come at noon. His name was Ken.

But here’s the deal. The futon was buried in the guest room. And when I say “buried”, I mean it was behind about three other pieces of furniture (that we’d moved out of Caedmon’s room when he got his new furniture) and under a bunch of stuff for Baby Sister (that’s been waiting for a home). So in order for Ken to come get the futon, that stuff had to be moved.

Husband was ready to go. He’d moved a bunch of the stuff out, then we moved the piano into our room, where its new home would be. (We moved furniture in there last weekend so we could move the piano in.) We got the other furniture out of the way and got the futon out. And decided that since we were on a roll, we might as well get the rooms swapped.

(I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but Baby Sister’s furniture would not fit in the guest room, which we’d originally planned to use as her room. We were going to have to use the office as her room and transform the guest room into the office. Madness.)

So we spent most of the day getting those rooms switched out while answering ten zillion “Why?” and “What are you doing?” questions from Caedmon and saying, “Leave that alone!” until I thought my head would explode. At one point, I literally exclaimed, “Serenity Now!”

Noon rolled around and no Ken. So Husband called him. He finally showed up about 12:30. I didn’t go out to meet him or watch the loading process. I figured they could take care of it on their own. But Caedmon was dying to see what was going on. So I told him to go look out the front window.

Just a few seconds later, I heard, “Momma! Why does he have chickens in traps?”

Huh? I had to go look.

Ken was driving a small Toyota truck and the futon was long enough that two legs hung over the tailgate. He was still in the driveway, busy tying the furniture down. But in the bed of the truck right next to the futon was a wire cage. And contained in said wire cage were two chickens.

Yes, I said chickens. More specifically, two large white roosters.

I’m curious as to the thought process behind driving around town with chickens and a futon in your truck.

Ya’ll know I am not a fan of chickens in my neighborhood. I was thinking that maybe Ken should’ve been tying down that chicken cage instead of the futon. Also, I was hoping that Ken didn’t have great hearing because Caedmon was literally yelling at the top of his lungs, “Momma! Look! He has chickens in his truck! Why does he have chickens? What is he doing with them? Is he going to eat them?”

I made up answers, got Caedmon away from the window, and we all went about our business. It’s just further proof that nothing at our house is as simple and straightforward as you think it’s going to be. Because the guy who wants your futon doesn’t bring someone to help him load it. Instead, he brings chickens.

This time, I blame Brandon. It was all his idea.