The following is a transcript of a conversation that took place between me and my husband last weekend.

[WARNING: CREATES DISTURBING MENTAL IMAGERY OF POULTRY. DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE EXTREMELY SENSITIVE] 

H:[standing in front of kitchen sink, which is running] Honey!  Do we have a hair dryer?!

Me: I have a hair dryer.  You only have that disgusting wooden brush that was in the box of junk from when you were in high school that your mother tricked me into taking.  And the vented round brush you stole from me five years ago but keep insisting is yours, even though you have no idea what a vented round brush is for, much less where to purchase one.

H: [giving me exasperated look] Will you just bring me the hair dryer, please?  I need it for something.

Me: Fine. 

[Go into bathroom and retrieve hair dryer while trying very hard not to think about what H could possibly “need” it for.  Return to kitchen and offer hair dryer to H.]

H: No, I don’t want it.  I have to go back outside.  I need you to help me.

Me: Help you do what?

H: [pulls hands out from under running water and shoves something at me] I need you to blow dry this chicken.

Me: What? [Glance down at hands.  Realize they suddenly contain sickly-looking yellow chick. Horrified comprehension dawns.]  Oh, no.  No, way. [trying to shove sickly yellow chick back at him] I’m NOT blow drying a chicken.

H: You have to.  If you don’t, he’ll die.

Me: Since when do baby chicks require styling with heat appliances for survival?  If Charles Darwin were alive and standing here, he’d be freaking out right now.

H: He was stuck to the bottom of the incubator, so I had to give him a bath.  But now his body temperature is too low.

Me: What is this weird slimy stuff on his stomach?

H: [making dismissive gesture with hand] Oh, you know . . .  his organs and stuff.

Me: His “organs and stuff”?!  What?!  Are you saying his organs are on the outside of his body?!

H: Yes.  Look, are you going to dry him or not?

Me: If his organs are outside his body, doesn’t that mean he’s, uh, you know . . . [voice turns to whisper so sickly chick can’t hear] going to die?

H: Yeah, he’ll be lucky to last the hour.

Me: Riiiiiiight. [long pause while I consider the benefits of divorce]  So explain to me then what, exactly, would be the purpose of blow drying him?  Isn’t that, like, extreme measures or something?  Wouldn’t it be more humane to let him enjoy his last few minutes in peace?

H: Probably so, but I accidentally put some of the other chicks too close to the heat lamp earlier, so I just really can’t have any more poultry lives on my conscience right now.

Me: [flicking on hair dryer] I’m so calling PETA when I get done with this.