We had a nice day the other day. The sun was shining through the chemtrails, the half dozen birds still alive were singing, and I was frying chicken with the kitchen window open. A fellow I know from up the street was walking by and I could see he could smell the sweet scent of the chicken I was frying. The scent acted on him like magnet dragging him directly to my door.
“Hello,” he said when I answered the door. “How’s life in the fast lane?”
“Well, you haven’t visited me for quite a while,” I said. “Come on in.”
“I’ve been busy,” he said sniffing and filling his nostrils with fried chicken scent.
“So what brings you to my door today? Was it the smell of my fried chicken?”
“No, it was just a coincidence that you were frying chicken when I decided to visit.” He gave me an innocent look and I knew he was lying.
“Just like the coincidence that the land burned in the fires in California and Hawaii was land that developers were salivating over,” I said.
“Oh, boy. You’ve got your tinfoil hat on today.”
“How about the coincidence that all those food plants burned down a couple of years ago and now oil refineries are burning down just when we need them the most?” I replied.
My neighbor shook his head.
“And all those natural paths and Kari Mullis, the inventor of the PCR, who died right after he put out a video where he said Fauci was a liar and a grifter and the test he invented could not be used for diagnosis and evil people would use it for that and that was the test used to diagnose COVID-“ I was out of breath.
“Your chicken’s goin’ to burn,” my neighbor said glancing at the skillet and looking alarmed.
I turned the chicken and pulled the buttermilk biscuits out of the oven then removed the crispy chicken from the frying pan and started the gravy for the mashed potatoes I’d already cooked. “What about all them scientists, 15 of them now, that were involved in alien research, antigravity, free energy and such disappearing under strange circumstances or dying in some strange way?”
“You’re overheating,” my neighbor said. “Now you know that Snopes, PolitiFact, all the articles that Google brings up and the AI I use say that all of these coincidences you’ve mentioned are just conspiracy theories. You need to calm down. Here, take one of these.”
He handed me a bottle labeled, “Thorazine.”
“What the hell?” I said tossing the bottle back to him. “They gave this to trippers to help them come down from a bad acid trip. Where did you get this?”
“My doctor said I needed it to calm my nerves. From the sound of things, you need some too. You sound as if you are on a bummer.”
“No thank you,” I returned. “I woke up thinking about those wars, Ukraine, Iran, and the ones the president says we need such as Cuba, Bolivia, Russia, and-“
“You are definitely overheating and if you don’t watch it, your gravy is gonna stick to the bottom of the pan and burn.” His voice took on a tone of deep concern.
I noticed I had stopped stirring the gravy and it was bubbling furiously. I turned off the heat and removed the pan from the burner. I placed it on the cool part of the stove and stirred rapidly to bring the temperature down so it wouldn’t stick. “I suppose you wouldn’t decline an invitation to dinner,” I said rather gruffly. I covet fried chicken and hate to share but this was my neighbor, he was here staring at my chicken, and I felt I should offer him a seat at my table.
“Coincidentally speaking, I am famished,” said my neighbor grabbing a plate and helping himself. It was just a coincidence he speared the thigh, my favorite piece of the chicken. He took the thigh!