The Practice of Psychotherapy

Captain America Lol GIF by mtv

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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 “road”, and is either

a) putting forward the question to the general public regarding the fowl’s 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 chicken’s 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 chicken’s 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.

“Know thyself” 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.

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I’m not sure about their behavior, but there are some things about elephants that can be puzzling. :thinking: For example, how do you get down from an elephant?

You don’t 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!

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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 aren’t 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 it’s the 90s/early aughts, I also like the club to be filled with cigarette smoke that I won’t 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.

We’ve 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 aren’t my thing. Maybe it’s because after school I would watch stand-up comedy specials on Comedy Central when I was too young to really get the jokes. Maybe it’s because I’m 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 it’s because chicken still tastes like tears and guilt to me. Just like Mrs. Beaksworth did that night. There’s really no way to know for sure why it is, but chicken crossing-the-road jokes aren’t my thing.

Getting back to the joke itself, it was fine. It asked questions many of us ask about chickens and roads and what it’s like for a chicken to get tossed out onto the asphalt by a kid who wasn’t old enough to know better, and definitely shouldn’t 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.

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∗ substitute the current Those Young People label of course

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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

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Why don’t ducks fly upside down?

because they would quack up!

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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.

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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.

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John Hodgman had a list in his book The Areas of My Expertise called “Five Jokes Which Have Never Produced Laughter.” 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, “Ask me about my dog.” 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.

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That guy does labels for beer too:



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I’m fission for a better pun but my attempts have fizzled.

This guy sounds like a blast though.

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Bloody chaos chicken.
He’s got a long-term plan, trust me.
Just look at his little swagger.

Fucking plotting something, I know it…

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Rene DesCartes walks into a bar.
Barkeep says “Rene, would you like a beer?”
DesCartes replies “I think not.”

And vanishes.

Let’s hear it for more nerd humor!!

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There are two words to remember that will open a lot of doors in life:
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Push and Pull

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