Each spring, regardless of how few people are in our family, my mother feels the need to purchase 100 new baby chicks. Within a few weeks, she's bemoaning the cost of chicken feed, whining about their incessant squawking, and reminding me it will soon be chicken plucking time. I don't pluck chickens.

There are just some things that I find more vile than tongue piercing and eye tattoos, and trust me, plucking chickens that smell like parched hair and L.O.C. laced feathers is right up there with the worst of those images. I don't care if a table spoon of L.O.C. in two gallons of water boiling on the stove make the feathers easy to pluck. And it makes me no never mind at all that the chicken doesn't feel it's head flying off at 250 miles per hour after the ax hits it. And, while we're at it, I don't have a problem anywhere with chickens running around the backyard with their necks flying to and fro after their heads are missing. I don't pluck chickens.

This year when mom started talking about baby chicks, I had a solution. I suggested she get the chicks and invite all the older ladies from church over for chicken plucking day. They all get together at quilting bees and talk about how much fun they used to have plucking chickens, so it must be something they'd enjoy doing. It became a discussion of how the art of plucking chickens is fading and nobody will remember how to do it, if we don't teach some of "these kids" how to pluck chickens. So, it was settled, the old ladies from Church are going to invite the youth group to spend the day with them plucking chickens and at the end of the day they're going to fry up a batch of fresh plucked chicken feet and the kids will enjoy a dinner they've prepared after a wonderful day of plucking chickens. And I STILL don't pluck chickens.

I noticed in the bulletin for this Sunday, this event has been given a wonderful name. The pastor put big bold letters across the page, and wrapped it in a chicken track frame, then called it "Chicken Soul Harvest." Underneath, it says the Deacons of the Church will be turning heads on that day. When my daughter red the invitation, she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "Mom, you're not going to make me go to this are you?" Like a good mother, I said, "No, honey, we're going to the City shopping for excessive new technologically advanced trinkets with our Tax Return on that day." I don't pluck chickens.

This morning, I heard Mom chirping to her friends on the phone about how they were going to go about catching, killing, and plucking the chickens, and I smiled. They've got three days of chicken plucking planned and I've got three days of shopping planned. They've found a solution to the process of plucking too many chickens each day for a home kitchen, and they're planning to use a commercial kitchen nearby for this purpose. With so many hands in the pot, I'm certain this will be definitely a better choice. She asked my opinions and I just smiled and nodded my agreement to her plan. I don't pluck chickens.

I know there are those out there who believe that chicken plucking might be a fun activity. I'm not one of them. And if you want to continue loving the taste of Fried Chicken you won't be either, however, if you're still in the mood to pluck a chicken, you'll find my mom and the older ladies from our church, along with the deacons who agreed to chop off chicken heads at the commercial kitchen on 9th street teaching all the daring youth in our church how to pluck chickens the last weekend of April. I won't be there, I don't pluck chickens.