THE    STORY   OF  THE   EXTREMELY   BORED   ROOSTER


                                 By

                          Christina Walden Ehn

           For my Dear Friend,  David Ben-Tikvah




      Once there was an extremely bored rooster.

      He stood around in the yard,  thinking bored thoughts,   and complaining to the empty air.

      “Why did I have to be born a rooster?” he moaned.  “It’s so boring being a rooster.   All I ever do is peck at the ground.  Once a day I jump up on that stupid fence  and holler.    Why do I have to do that?    People will eventually see that the sun is coming up.  Why do I have to holler from that stupid fence about it every morning?

       “I wish I could have been a different, interesting, kind of bird.    I remember last summer I heard those pigeons talking  about all the other different kinds of birds there are.    I wonder what it would be like to be one of those seagulls I heard them mention.
It might be fun to fly high in the sky, with the sun overhead,  and spy a fish under the water,   and make a dizzy high dive and grab him for supper.  I’d get all wet,  but it sure sounds more interesting than pecking the dry ground all day for a bite to eat.

    “Maybe I should have been a pigeon.  They get to travel a lot, and sometimes people give them breakfast.

     “I even heard tell about a great big beautiful bird called a goose.  I think they fly back and forth between far away places.   I think where they fly depends on the weather.   I’d sure like to get away from this heat sometimes, too.     I’d like to have that great big loud honk I heard they have.     Sure sounds like it would be more musical than this stupid cock-a-doodle-doo I get stuck with.

      “Then there’s those doves.  Those love birds.  I wonder what it would be like to fall really in love with one mate, instead of having to take care of the whole henhouse.   Sometimes I just can’t stand it!   All those women do is cackle, cackle, cackle.  All day, every day.   Why did God make women able tlo talk, anyway?    Why can’t they just lay their eggs and be quiet about it?

    I’ve even heard there is a little yellow bird called a canary.  They go to live in people’s houses.    And people make a little golden room for them,  and hang it from their ceilings,
Right in the room where the people live.  They have all their food and water given to them.  And all they have to do for that royal treatment is sing all day.    That’s the kind of life a bird could really get into!

       I clould even be a-----what was that birds name?”    The bored rooster  ruffled his feathers in annoyance at himself  for forgetting the word he was trying to think of.   

       “See---tee---pea---that’s it--peacock!   If I were a peacock, maybe I might not ever get out of this yard.   But people would come to visit me.   I could spend all day just strutting at people and showing off my tail!


       “I just hate being a rooster.  Every day.  Every day. Every day.  Exactly the same.  No change in routine.    No quieting the hens and their incessant cackle.   No thanks.  No appreciation.    Just get up on that stupid fence and crow every morning,  to get people mad at me for waking them up.”

       The bored rooster’s feathers fluffed up again as he got a sudden idea.

       “Maybe this morning I won’t do it!”  he declared tro himself.   In  flash of ill-temper.   “Will it stop the world if one rooster lets the sun rise by itself just for one morning?”

       The sun rose a little higher,  and he gave  up his petulence.

       He hopped up onto the fencepost and flapped his bored wings.

       His feathers ruffled again at his bored annoyance with it all.

       “Well, here goes nothing,” he muttered sulkily.

       “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

       “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

       “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

       And a short way down the road,   a   man called Peter started to cry.

        And then he reconciled with his risen Master.

        And then he got bold as a lion, and preached a sermon where 3000 people were delivered from Hell.

        Then he spent the rest of his life delivering the glorious Good News  to people in the dark.

     And then the angels carved his name into one of the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem.

      And the moral of this story is,   if you are stuck in a boring  place you just can’t get away from,    you are also in a place where the Lord is counting on you to be in just the right place at just the right time  to crow by His divine order.

       And the Lord will see to it that your obedient cock-a-doodle-doo  will be heard all the way around the world.


                              The End