I think most of us have heard the joke about the chicken’s reason for crossing the road, but I’ll still include it here, just in case:
Question: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Answer: To get to the other side.
It’s usually at this point that the (unfortunate?) listeners begin to roll their eyes and possibly smack their foreheads with their palms (the modern, colloquial term for the latter is “facepalming”). I can honestly say that I never actually laughed, or even chuckled when I heard this joke. I’ve even tried to figure out why it was supposed to be funny, but I still have no clue. Perhaps it was part of some funny experience that the people who came up with shared, and over the years we’ve lost the story that goes with the joke.
But that isn’t the point of this post. This post is about seeing the funny things that life allows to happen to us. So here goes…
On one particularly mundane day, I was driving along, as usual when, lo and behold, I saw a chicken. It was your average chicken, there was nothing particularly special about it until…it crossed the road directly in front of the vehicle. It was at this point I asked myself a very important question: Why did this chicken cross the road? There was only one answer and it was so simple: To get to the other side.
Yes folks, the chicken crossed the road to get to the other side (I feel like Captain Obvious making a brilliant obvious deduction). While the chicken continued with its business, I enjoyed a good chuckle. A dash of humour had just been added to a joke which never seemed funny to me before. But there’s more…
A few weeks later I was driving along a different road, when another chicken crossed the road directly in front of me (and apparently for the same reason too!). As a matter of fact, I’ve taken to slowing down whenever I see chickens along the roadside, because they seem to enjoy crossing the street directly in front of me. I can safely say that 100% of the times I’ve seen them cross the road, it was for the same reason (although, sadly, I was never able to interview the chickens). I can also say that I appreciate the fact that I get to see a “stale joke” happen every time I see a chicken cross the road.
This post may seem a bit silly, and, truly, it is. But I think sometimes we need a little silliness in life and the ability to see humour in circumstances can go a long way to making life more enjoyable for ourselves and others (provided you don’t find humour in ways that are insensitive or inconsiderate of others of course). So feel free to smile at the silliness and add some fun to your day.
Happy reading,
The shespeaksandwrites blogger.
Shespeaksandwrites 