Our teacher asked what my favorite animal was, and I said, “Fried chicken.” She said I wasn’t funny, but she couldn’t have been right, because everyone else laughed. My parents told me to always tell the truth. I did. I honestly thought I was doing exactly what they had taught me to do, even if my answer apparently wasn’t the one my teacher wanted to hear.
Fried chicken is my favorite animal. I told my dad what happened, and he said my teacher was probably a member of PETA. He said they love animals very much. Then he started laughing so hard that he nearly dropped his fork, which made me wonder if maybe my teacher was the only person who didn’t understand the joke.
I do, too. Especially chicken, pork and beef. Anyway, my teacher sent me to the principal’s office. I walked down the hallway wondering what I had actually done wrong. Nobody had ever told me there were rules about which animals I was allowed to like.
I told him what happened, and he laughed, too. Then he told me not to do it again. The next day in class my teacher asked me what my favorite live animal was. She looked at me very seriously this time, almost as if she had prepared the question specifically to catch me.
I told her it was chicken. She asked me why, so I told her it was because you could make them into fried chicken. She sent me back to the principal’s office. By then, I was beginning to suspect that there was some secret answer everyone else knew except me.
He laughed, and told me not to do it again. I don’t understand. My parents taught me to be honest, but my teacher doesn’t like it when I am. I decided that from then on, I would be extremely careful with my answers. Unfortunately, I apparently wasn’t careful enough.
Today, my teacher asked us to tell her what famous person we admire most. I told her, “Colonel Sanders.” Guess where I am now… I knew the moment I said it that I had made a terrible mistake. My teacher closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and pointed silently toward the door. I didn’t even wait for her to say it. I was already heading for the principal’s office.
My sister understands everything! She was waiting for me outside the principal’s office, took one look at my face, and burst out laughing. Then she whispered, “You really need to stop telling the truth in the funniest way possible.” I asked her what I was supposed to say instead, but before she could answer, Dad arrived to pick us up—and the smell of fried chicken from the cafeteria suddenly made the whole situation even worse.
A little girl and her older brother were visiting their grandfather’s farm. The older brother decided to play a trick on his younger sister. He told her that he discovered a man-eating chicken. He said it in such a serious voice that she believed every word, and before long she was imagining a giant chicken chasing people around the farm, pecking at anyone foolish enough to get too close.
The girl was frightened and ran inside in fear. Then the older brother heard his little sister scream. He ran inside immediately. For a moment, he thought his joke had somehow gone too far and that she had actually seen something frightening. But when he reached the kitchen, he stopped dead in his tracks because his grandfather was sitting at the table, calmly eating lunch.
She was screaming at their grandfather, who was chewing down on a plate of fried chicken. “What is it?” he asked. The sister turned to him in fear and said, “It- it’s- IT’S A MAN EATING CHICKEN!” The older brother stared at her for a second, then at Grandpa’s plate, and finally burst out laughing. Grandpa just shook his head and continued eating, while the little girl stood there completely convinced that she had discovered the most terrifying creature on the entire farm.
