Chicken Feed
From The Encyclopedia of Pointless
Chicken Feed is an ancient slang term for a very small amount of currency. Such as the example: "To Bill Gates, the $250,000 a year I make off of this site is chicken feed". The origins of the term Chicken Feed can be traced back to an ancient french story about a boy who lived on the farm.
THE ANCIENT FRENCH STORY ABOUT A BOY WHO LIVED ON THE FARM
by Richarde Paule-Jean
There once was a poor boy who lived on a farm with his old mother. They were so poor that everything they had was made out of dirt. Their table was made out of dirt. Their chairs were made out of dirt. Their little cast iron stove was made out of dirt. Their beds were made out of dirt. They were so poor, I have touble getting across just how poor they were. Their walls were made out of dirt. Their roof was made out of a few horse ribs and dirt. Their clothes were not made out of dirt. That would be silly. They could not afford soap and water, so they washed their clothes with rocks and sand. The only thing of value they had was a small metal container that held one chicken.
Their chicken had not laid an egg for three years. The boy's mother thought that it was time to kill the chicken and sell its meat. The boy knew better. He knew that the chicken's problem was not a lack of eggs but rather a lack of good chicken feed.
"Mother! Mother!" He would shout, "The chicken needs better food than dirt!"
His mother would chuckle softly, and say, "Boy, your mother knows best. Now go sit in the dirt box."
The dirt box was a little hole in the ground that the boy's mother used to punish the boy. It was also the boy's bed. As the boy crawled in the box that night, he noticed something different about it. It seemed to be much deeper, and at the bottom there was a large hollow lit with torches. A tiny man sat at a little chair in the corner, and told the boy, "If you go to the evil emperor Francis' palace and steal his Dish of Justice +9 Lightning Enchanced, I'll give you all the chicken feed you'd ever want." The boy agreed, and quickly crawled out of his box/home of the tiny man. He grabbed his coat, brushed off his dirt blanket, and headed to the palace of the evil emperor Francis.
The evil emperor Francis ruled over the subjects of his tiny country with an iron fist that he called Johnny. He was slightly insane, and often blamed Johnny for his bad decisions. At the moment the boy snuck into his imperial chamber, Francis was speaking with his most trusted advisor.
"Advisor," Francis said, "We must raise the taxes! From now on, all my subjects must give everything they have to me!"
"But Emperor, we did that last week, and now all your subjects are gone exept for that one poor family that makes things out of dirt!" The advisor was afraid that maybe he would have to give everything he had too.
"Johnny!" The emperor screamed, "How could you come up with such a terrible idea? I kick you!" The emperor kicked the iron fist, but he only hurt his toe. The emperor blamed this on Johnny too. And there, over the Emperor's head, was the Dish of Justice +9 Lightning Enchanced.
"I've got to be sneaky and trick the Emperor into giving the Dish of Justice +9 Lightning Enchanced to me!" the boy thought, and hatched a plan worthy of Mortecai the 15th of Palesia.
He jumped from the shadows and screamed, "EMPEROR FRANCIS! I AM SAILOR MOON, DESTROYER OF EVIL, AND THAT MEANS YOU! AND IN THE NAME OF THE MOON, I WILL PUNISH YOU!"
Emperor Francis was befuddled. A tiny boy appeared out of nowhere and claims to be some sort of sea traveller. Truly a bizarre notion. But he had better play along. "Okay... Sailor moon... what do you want?" he asked the small boy.
The advisor, on the other hand knew exactly what was going on. Sailor Moon was here and was going to destroy all their plans with one simple blow. But... the advisor wasn't going down without a fight!
The advisor jumped in front of Emperor Francis and started growling. Whisps of pure energy rose from his clothes, which ruffled like a wind was blowing upwards, but the room was deathly still. "So... Sailor Moon, you want to fight, eh? Well, sink your teeth into this! SHINTO BLADE OF CHOCOLATE DESTRUCTION!!!"
This is where the boy's plan came into effect. He held out a single flower The flower was, of course, destroyed, but the Advisor stopped his attack before it reached the boy. "Why," The advisor said, "You're not sailor moon at all! What is this? The advisor, true to form, stooped down to look closely at the boy's face. This was the boy's chance. He grabbed the advisor by the shoulders amd hopped up onto the advisor's back. The advisor straightened up in surprise, and the boy used this springboard effect to leap across the hall and onto the Dish of Justice +9 Lightning Enchanted.
"See you later, Kevin!" The boy shouted, and leaped out of the room with the Dish of Justice +9 Lightning Enchanted.
Emperor Francis stood, flabberghasted. "Who's Kevin?" He wondered aloud.
Meanwhile, the boy returned home and climbed down his dirt box to the strange hollow of the tiny man. "By gosh," the tiny man shouted, "you did it! You got the Dish of Justice +9 Lightning Enchanted! Excellent work, child, and here is your reward!" The tiny man pulled a tiny lever, and the wall opened up to a vast cavern filled with chicken feed. The best feed you could ever feed your chicken, and enough to last a lifetime. The tiny man said, "All of this is yours now. And if you'll excuse me, I've got to save the world." The tiny man took the Dish of Justice +9 Lightning Enchanted and climbed up the dirt box. The boy grabbed a handful of chicken feed and climbed back up the dirt box as well, and gave it to the chicken.
"Boy!" his mother shouted, "Where did you get that chicken feed?"
The boy told the tale of how a tiny man gave them a lifetime supply of chicken feed in exchange for a Dish of Justice +9 Lightning Enchanted, and the boy's mother was so happy. "That's great! Now our chicken can lay eggs and we'll all live happily ever after!" She exclaimed.
But it turned out that the chicken in fact was a rooster, so it didn't actually lay eggs. So instead they killed it and sold its meat to Emperor Francis, who was forced to eat it on a normal dish, even though it was the best dirt-raised chicken he'd ever tasted. The boy and his mother instead started a chicken feed business, and made so much money that the boy married the baker's daughter. This boy was my father.
THE END
| -- Mr. Encyclopedia |
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