I don’t remember exactly when the rubber chicken came into our lives. Random objects appear haphazardly in the playroom. Don’t you wonder where all that stuff comes from? One day, you rifle through the toy chest looking for some type of make-shift costume for a preschool theme day. (Why are there so many costume theme days? And why do I always seem to be blind-sided by them?)
You spot the spindly yellow legs sticking out. Then you extract it from a tangle of jump rope and Ugly Dolls and hold it up. “When did we get this rubber chicken?” you ask the boys. No one knows. Your younger son grabs it and swings it around. You move on to finding pieces for “pirate day” — there’s an eye patch in here somewhere — and forget about it.
Until it turns up in your bed as you pull back the covers to go to sleep that night.
There’s something extra shocking about seeing that pockmarked body when you’re tired and unprepared for it. Very funny, you think to yourself. The next day, as you pack
Thus began the game of “Rotating Rubber Chicken” that my family played for a while.
It dragged on longer than I predicted because we’d all forget about it for long lapses of time. But those surprises were the best ones because when you least expected it, there would be that big old rubber chicken staring at you from the top shelf of the refrigerator or in the passenger seat of your car. It might have been hanging from the head of your shower or swinging from the
Somehow the rubber chicken is the perfect combination of humor, surprise, fright, and even a little repulsion thrown into the mix. Because of these qualities, rubber chickens have even been used in police training. I guess this chicken switcheroo would have gone on into perpetuity at our house had it not been for my husband’s declaration he’d had “enough” when one day he found it in his underwear drawer for the “umpteenth time.” The rubber chicken’s fate was much like my sister’s kitty’s when she was little. Dad rode it out to a “farm,” and Rubber Chicken took a one-way car ride to Goodwill, never to return.
Our family likes to tease each other.
My younger son still talks about the fact that he’s traumatized from my husband switching his milk out for green juice when he’d gone out to get the paper. Why he wouldn’t notice the color change, I don’t know. But it was in a purple cup.
Sure, you can say that practical jokes and pranks are rude and annoying. Some people might think they’re harmful, intended to make the other party look foolish or silly. But I offer a different view: I think many times, these types of jokes stem from a place of creative caring. It’s saying, “Hey, we’re all in this together. Here’s something to laugh at.”
Or maybe it’s a way of expressing thoughtfulness: you’re thinking about the person and making an effort to give them a surprise or a laugh. It could even be simply: I see you. You matter to me. Here’s a rubber chicken.
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For my previous post on family car travel humor, you can click on this title: How To Survive a Road Trip Without Losing Your Marbles
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