4: To cross, or not to cross? That is the question,
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The wheels and axles of the city's mass transit
Or to take flight against a sea of motorists
And by opposing, end me? To cross, to peep
No more! And by that peep to say we end
The chickhood and the thousand fender-shocks
That chicken is heir to. 'Tis a perambulation
Devoutly to be wish'd. (Hamlet)
Homer Simpson:
ohhhhhhhh Chicken.....
Bart Simpson:
It's outta here, man!
Mrs. Slocum:
Now look what you've done, there's chicken all over my
pussy!
Kenneth Starr:
In view of President Clinton's dealings with the Tyson Poultry
Company, the matter of the chicken crossing the road is under
investigation for its possible connection with the Whitewater affair.
George Steinbrenner:
Because I offered him a $4 million contract.
George Steinbrenner2:
Because I fired him!
George Steinbrenner3:
Because he's now my new manager.
George Steinbrenner4:
Because I fired him again!
Dr. Suess:
See the end of this document for the full Dr. Suess version.
Sisyphus:
Was it pushing a rock, too?
B.F. Skinner:
Because the external influences which had pervaded its
sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such
a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while
believing these actions to be of its own free
will.
Mr. Spock:
It was not logical for the chicken to do so, but
I have frequently observed that the behaviour of chickens
is not logical
E.E. (Doc) Smith:
Your humble narrator can barely do justice to
this climactic event that rent asunder the fundamental ether
of space itself, as the chicken, embodying all that is good
and hard and straight and keen in the Avain world, fearlessly
approached, bridged, and conquered the road for
Civilization.
Socrates:
To pick up some hemlock at the corner druggist.
The Sphinx:
You tell me.
Joseph Stalin:
It was clearly a conspiracy. Take all the chickens
out and shoot them. At Once!
John Steinbeck:
The road baked in the relentless summer sun as the chicken, looking
about, began to cross. It stopped occaisionally to peck at a grass seed
that had become lodged in a crevice in the cracked macadam. The chicken
reached the other side, then began making his way to the Salinas, which
lay muddy and turgid in the July afternoon, all the while thinking of
the cool shade by the river and how good the can of beans in his bedroll
would taste tonight.
Ben Stone (Law and Order):
Because the defendant made it, sir.
Oliver Stone:
He went back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the
left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the..
Dr. Strangelove:
Because it could not afford to be caught
on the wrong side of the road-side gap.
John Sununu:
The Air Force was only too happy to provide
the transportation, so quite understandably
the chicken availed himself of the opportunity.
Grand Moff Tarkin:
Fear will keep the chickens in line, fear of this
thoroughfare!
Tim "The Toolman" Taylor:
This here bird'll cross that road in no time flat, now that
I've made a few "special modifications! We've added the
Binford 7100 Multi-Purpose power unit, which I've souped up
by adding a United Aircraft PT-6 jet engine - Urrgh urrgh
urrgh! Heidi, bring out the chicken, please....
Alfred, Lord Tennyson:
So that it could sail beyond the sunset.
Old Testament:
And rooster and hen were married. And rooster did begat
chicken. And chicken did cross the road.
New Testament:
He among you who has not crossed roads, let him cast the
first egg!
Margaret Thatcher:
There was simply no alternative!
Theodoric of York, the Medievil Barber:
Because of an imbalance of bodily humors caused
by an elf or small toad living in the chicken's
stomach. What this fowl needs is a good bleeding.
Dylan Thomas:
To not go (sic) gentle into that good night.
Hunter S. Thompson:
Why the &*%$#@ not?
Henry David Thoreau:
To live deliberately ... and suck all the marrow
out of life.
Tiggr: Because that's what chickens do best!
Tiggr: (again)
That's the wonderful thing about Chickens,
Chasing Chickens is FUN FUN FUN,
And the Wonderful thing about Chickens
Is that when crossing streets they RUN!
Tim, the Enchanter:
It's got wings that... and a beak that... good god
man, look at the bones!
Brian Tobin (new premier of Newfoundland):
It followed the cod....
J.R.R. Tolkein:
The chicken, sunlight coruscating off its radiant yellow-
white coat of feathers, approached the dark, sullen asphalt
road and scrutinized it intently with its obsidian-black
eyes. Every detail of the thoroughfare leapt into blinding
focus: the rough texture of the surface, over which count-
less tires had worked their relentless tread through the
ages; the innumerable fragments of stone embedded within the
lugubrious mass, perhaps quarried from the great pits where
the Sons of Man labored not far from here; the dull black
asphalt itself, exuding those waves of heat which distort
the sight and bring weakness to the body; the other
attributes of the great highway too numerous to give name.
Thomas de Torquemada:
Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.
Anthony Trollope:
Why, to avoid Mrs. Proudy and Mr. Slope, of course.
Mark Twain:
The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.
Darth Vader:
Because it could not resist the power of the Dark Side.
Tom Waits:
...and the chicken, decked out in Foster Grant
wraparounds and Purina checkerboard slacks, cruised
across La Cienica Boulevard in a 1959 monkey-shit-
brown Buick Super, while the yellow biscuit of a
buttery cue-ball moon came rolling maverick across
an obsidian sky, and why? you say? Cause that's
life, and that's what all the chickens say.
You're one one side in April, and you're
seriouly run down in May ....
George Washington:
I cannot tell a lie. I was going to chop it with
my little axe, so it crossed the road.
Mae West:
'Cause I invited it to come up and see me sometime.
Jerry White:
Why does a chicken cross the road only half-way? So she can lay it on
the line.
Walt Whitman:
To cluck the song of itself.
Robert Anton Wilson:
Because agents of the Ancient Illuminated Roosters of Cooperia were
controlling it with their Orbital Mind-Control Lasers as part of their
master plan to take over the world's egg production.
Major Charles Emerson Winchester, the Third:
What do you two-bit quacks know about chickens? Did
you learn about them in medical school, or did you just read the comic
book?
Ludwig Wittgenstein:
The possibility of "crossing" was encoded into the
objects "chicken" and "road," and circumstances
came into being which caused the
actualization of this potential occurrence.
Wittgenstein #2:
There are indeed things that cannot be put into words. They
make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.
Wittgenstein #3:
What we cannot explain we must pass over in silence.
Tom Wolfe:
Kesey, muscles rippling under his shirt, a mysterious
smile on his face, surrounded by the Merry Pranksters,
placed the chicken at the road's edge. The chicken paused
at the edge of the road, looking this way and that,
and then rending the air with a tremendous, "ba-BAAWWWWKKK!"
bolted across the road, its disheveled wings flapping
uselessly about, leaving a trail of feathers and dander
that, whenever two-ton chromium steel, 300 horsepower
tail-finned symbols of Detroit's and America's supremacy
passed, would swirl in a miniature version of a cyclone like
the ones Mr. and Mrs. America see on the TV news every
evening when he's come home from work and she's setting
the table for dinner, both only half paying attention
to the cyclones that devastate midwestern cow towns on
sweltering summer afternoons. And the heat, dander,
tornados, asphalt, tail-fins and the sweat of Mr.
and Mrs. America as they move mechanically in their daily
routine like the figurines in one of those huge medieval
clocks on some cathedral in some European town, moving in
the same way, every hour on the hour, it was all summed
up by the "ba-BAAWWWWKKK!" of a scampering chicken
accompanied by the "skritch, skritch" of its feet.
William Wordsworth:
To have something to recollect in tranquility.
Mr. Worf:
I do not know, Klingon chickens do NOT cross the road.
Molly Yard:
It was a hen!
Yoda:
Crossing the road makes not a chicken great
Henny Youngman:
Take this chicken ... please.
Zeno of Elea:
To prove it could never reach the other side. |
