Chicken feet and kids are jerks

Chicken feet sans red nail polish. Photo from CEZ'L 

I was delighted to hear from Sandra, a friend from my elementary school days. Namely, the pubescent school days when kids are battling to be cool, or not to be the least cool. Turns out she has been reading my kancer kronicles.

Anyway, Sandra reminded me of something we did, something we thought was hilarious at the time. Something that today, would probably get us suspended at the very least. And something that reminded me that all kids are jerks now and then, even kids like us who weren't normally jerks.

I had just returned from a visit at my grandparents' farm. At the time, they had chickens. I had found the foot of one unfortunate chicken who had been recently decapitated, and thought it would be a great idea to bring the foot home.

I told Sandra about my find. We decided we needed to do something special with the chicken foot.

Hatching a plan

I'm not terribly sure how we selected our target. I remember she was very bright, one of the first to put her hand up in class. She didn't have a mean bone in her body. I guess that was it, she was simply an easy target.

Having been a target many times - I was a quiet, pudgy bookworm - I should have known better. Then again, maybe I was just delighted not to be the target this time around.

Anyway, we decided we would fancy up the foot, package it, and leave it as a gift on her desk.

Crafty chicks

We painstakingly painted the chicken's nails red, then stored them in the freezer at Sandra's house for safe keeping. Then we fashioned a package out of an old Cool Whip container, and made a tag in the shape of a fish. We wrote a love note from the least cool guy in our class, whose last name was Fisher. And topped it with a bow.

April Fool's Day, we made sure to get to school early, so we could deposit the gift on our target's desk before the teacher arrived.

As our classmates strolled in, they saw the package, paused, and wondered what could be inside. Finally, our target arrived. With a crowd around her, she read the note, opened the container and screamed.

A clean escape

Sandra, who made no secret of her dislike of our target, was roundly scolded by our teacher. She even told him it was me who had brought the chicken foot home from my grandparents' farm. For whatever reason, the teacher never said a word to me about it.