Breaking the Law!

When people think of Evil, they think of the big stuff. Inators. Takeovers. Dramatically monologuing from a rooftop while something explodes in the background. And yes, obviously, I do all of that. But there is another kind of Evil that does not get enough credit — the quiet, defiant, deeply personal kind.

I am raising chickens.

In the city limits of Danville.

Illegally.

A Brief History of Injustice

Danville, in its infinite municipal wisdom, has decided that you may not raise chickens within city limits unless you own what the ordinance describes — and I am paraphrasing only slightly — as a farm the size of a small country. Your average backyard does not qualify. My backyard definitely does not qualify. The city has spoken.

And who is the city, you ask? Who sits in the mayor’s office, signing ordinances with that smug, perfectly-groomed smile of his?

My brother.

The Mayor of Danville. My brother. Who knows — he absolutely knows — that back in Drusselstein, raising chickens was one of the very few things I was genuinely, demonstrably better at than him. Not faster. Not stronger. Not more beloved by our mother, apparently, despite everything. But chickens? Chickens were mine. I had a gift. My chickens thrived. His chickens would not even make eye contact with him.

And now, decades later, he is sitting in the mayor’s chair and he has made it illegal. In my city. Targeted, petty, beautifully bureaucratic revenge — and I almost respect it. Almost. If it were not directed at me, I would call it Evil. Instead I am calling it personal, and I am responding in kind.

Two can play at this game, big brother. You have the ordinance. I have the chickens.

The Broodinator

The chicks are in the Broodinator, warm and thriving and entirely unaware that their existence is an act of municipal rebellion. They are very small. They are very fluffy. They are the most adorable thing I have ever used to defy a city ordinance — and the most satisfying, given who wrote it.

Are they Evil? Objectively, no. They are baby chickens. But the act of raising them — the defiance, the principle, the quiet satisfaction of knowing that somewhere the Mayor of Danville has absolutely no idea — that is very Evil indeed.

He made a mistake the day he signed that ordinance.

I have seventeen chickens.

They are thriving.

They are better than his would ever be.

– Doof, Evil Scientist and Unlicensed Urban Farmer, Tri-State Area