{"id":484,"date":"2007-09-21T12:12:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-21T12:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stallioncornell.wordpress.com\/2007\/09\/21\/finding-something-to-complain-about"},"modified":"2007-09-21T12:12:00","modified_gmt":"2007-09-21T12:12:00","slug":"finding-something-to-complain-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/finding-something-to-complain-about\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Something to Complain About"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve heard all the stand-up jokes about airline travel. The food sucks. The person you sit next to won\u2019t shut up. The person you sit next to is fat. There\u2019s no room, leg or otherwise. They lose your luggage. They frisk you naked. Lines. Announcements. Delays. And always twirling, twirling\u2026<\/p>\n

I added the twirling part.<\/p>\n

The thing I can\u2019t stand, which I\u2019ve never heard anybody mention, is the airplane air. The stale, compressed, recycled air. Just the scent of it makes me feel like part of a cattle herd. It\u2019s impossible to feel comfortable anywhere near an airplane or an airport. Falling asleep on an airplane is next to impossible, especially when your knees are in your face.<\/p>\n

And they lost my luggage, too. Bungholes.<\/p>\n

But the good news is they found my luggage. And now, because of the miracle of airline travel, I\u2019m in Kauai. And there\u2019s nothing to complain about in Kauai.<\/p>\n

Except the chickens.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>There are six bazillion chickens in Kauai. Nobody\u2019s sure how they got here, but everyone agrees that they\u2019re not going anywhere soon. A local here calls them \u201cKauai\u2019s feathered rats.\u201d Except that, unlike rats, the roosters crow all hours of the day and night. It\u2019s not unusual to hear a \u201ccock-a-doodle-doo\u201d at 4:00 AM in complete and utter darkness. I don\u2019t really mind so much, though, because 4:00 AM Hawaii time is 8:00 AM my time. But hearing a rooster crow at 2:00 in the afternoon while you\u2019re sitting on the beach is a bit much.<\/p>\n

Since Kauai has no natural chicken killers, there\u2019s nothing to kill the chickens. And these chickens desperately need to be killed. And someone needs to kill them.<\/p>\n

Let me be the first to volunteer.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what Wikipedia<\/a> has to say about them:<\/p>\n

1992’s Hurricane Iniki may have caused an indirect change in Kaua\u02bbi’s ecosystem. Some say a chicken farm was destroyed, causing all of the chickens to roam free that one may see today. Others say that sugarcane plantation laborers in the late 1800s and early 1900s brought and raised chickens (for eating and cockfighting) and many got loose over the years and multiplied. Whatever their original source, Kauai is now home to thousands of wild roosters and hens, roaming the island with few natural predators. Wild roosters have been known to disturb evening quiet time at odd hours with their crowing. Currently, the Humane Society is investigating the death of large numbers of Kauai chickens. The deaths are most likely due to bacterial infections caused by over-population.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s right, Humane Society. \u201cBacterial infections.\u201d Except they\u2019re caused by the squealing tires of my car.<\/p>\n

Maybe the airplanes could kill the chickens by checking them all as luggage and then losing them somewhere.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m here all week. I actually have to work, but I plan to enjoy myself while doing it. If I can find something else to complain about, I\u2019ll let you know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019veheard all the stand-up jokes about airline travel. The food sucks. The person you sit next to won\u2019t shut up. The person you sit next to is fat. There\u2019s no room, leg or otherwise. They lose your luggage. They frisk you naked. Lines. Announcements. Delays. And always twirling, twirling\u2026 I added the twirling part. The ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}