Ah, I think I see the flaw there. The question is asked from the perspective, not of the chicken, but of an observer of the actions of said chicken. We may infer that this observer has seen the chicken move from one side to the other of a geographical feature meeting the commonly accepted definition of a âroadâ, and is either
a) putting forward the question to the general public regarding the fowlâs motivation or
b) asking themself the question in an attempt to deduce the motivation from first principles.
Either approach, it seems to me, offers a reasonable chance of success, giving the limited range of stimuli that a chickenâs brain is likely to be responding to. The motivation is likely to boil down to one of food, opportunity for reproduction, or avoidance of predators*. (I think you are correct, though, in surmising that the existence of the road in the chickenâs path may not be germane.)
*I am aware of numerous other hypotheses that have been advanced for the behaviour of chickens as a species with regard to thoroughfares, but a large proportion seem to be obviously frivolous, and I suspect many of the remainder are apocryphal.
âKnow thyselfâ as the philosopher says. Still, I hope our paths may cross at a party in the future. I have some questions regarding the behaviour of elephants that I would like to run by you.
Iâm not sure about their behavior, but there are some things about elephants that can be puzzling. For example, how do you get down from an elephant?
You donât get down from an elephant, you get down from a duck.
Why did the duck stumble on the sidewalk?
It tripped on a quack.
Why did the coach put the duck into a basketball game?
To make a fowl shot.
What if you combine ducks and pyrotechnics?
You wind up with firequackers!
Road-crossing Chicken Joke 2 is Fine.
Jokes about chickens crossing roads are eternal. They are what draw the big laughs from convivial people of all ages. They just arenât my thing. When I listen to jokes, I like to be at dark clubs with a two-drink minimum. I like jokes that have just the right blend of whimsy and raunchy, told by someone on a stage who is desperate to please me and everyone else in the club because their income depends on it. I like there to be call backs to earlier jokes towards the end of the set. If itâs the 90s/early aughts, I also like the club to be filled with cigarette smoke that I wonât be able to get out of my clothes or hair for days. It will remind me of the experience I had while listening to jokes that seemed like they were written just for me.
Weâve all had roads to cross in our lives, both literal and metaphorical, and road-crossing chicken jokes evoke memories of those other roads for many people, myself included. They just arenât my thing. Maybe itâs because after school I would watch stand-up comedy specials on Comedy Central when I was too young to really get the jokes. Maybe itâs because Iâm more comfortable with a veneer of irony over all of my social interactions. It might even be because, as a curious child, I took Mrs. Beaksworth out of her coop and tried to coax her across the road to see what was so funny about it, and then she was hit by a car. Maybe itâs because chicken still tastes like tears and guilt to me. Just like Mrs. Beaksworth did that night. Thereâs really no way to know for sure why it is, but chicken crossing-the-road jokes arenât my thing.
Getting back to the joke itself, it was fine. It asked questions many of us ask about chickens and roads and what itâs like for a chicken to get tossed out onto the asphalt by a kid who wasnât old enough to know better, and definitely shouldnât have been burdened with the responsibility of knowing the location of the keys to the chicken coop. The joke makes us wonder if Mrs. Beaksworth had been a little less trusting and hid on that fated day, maybe she would still be with us. But alas, there was no place to hide in that small space. It was a chicken coop.
We were too poor to afford a chicken sedan.
â substitute the current Those Young People label of course
How many Austinites does it take to change a lightbulb?
1 to change it.
49 people to reminisce about how great things were while the old bulb was still working.
this is a very Austin joke and may indicate I have been here too long
Why donât ducks fly upside down?
because they would quack up!
I can relate. Really, the only reason for a chicken to cross the road that ever seemed logical to me is that it was simply too far to go around.
They say that an elephant never forgets, but the truth is that an elephant never forgives.
And nothing will stop them from getting their revenge.
John Hodgman had a list in his book The Areas of My Expertise called âFive Jokes Which Have Never Produced Laughter.â The first one went like this:
A man goes into a bar. He has a dog with him. The dog is wearing an eye patch. The man says to the bartender, âAsk me about my dog.â Unfortunately, the bartender does not hear him, because he went deaf in one ear as a child. He serves a woman at the other end of the bar. When he comes around to the man with the dog again, the man orders an imported beer. He forgets what he was going to say about the dog.
Iâm fission for a better pun but my attempts have fizzled.
This guy sounds like a blast though.
Bloody chaos chicken.
Heâs got a long-term plan, trust me.
Just look at his little swagger.
Fucking plotting something, I know itâŚ
Rene DesCartes walks into a bar.
Barkeep says âRene, would you like a beer?â
DesCartes replies âI think not.â
And vanishes.
Letâs hear it for more nerd humor!!
There are two words to remember that will open a lot of doors in life:
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Push and Pull