Chicks

I don't normally think of myself as naive. But I recently found out something that's making me reconsider.

Do you remember back to when you were very young, and your teacher introduced your class to an incubator with a couple eggs in it? Remember how the eggs hatched, and for two weeks you and your classmates diligently cared for the babies? You gave them cute names and took turns feeding them? Then when two weeks passed, the growing chicks were sent away to live out the rest of their chicken lives on an area farm?

Lies! It turns out that those little chicks were likely sent off to a zoo, where they were euthanized and fed to animals that like to eat wee tender chickens. Snakes, for instance, think they're delicious.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not squeamish about the food chain. I'm certainly down with the program of misleading small children. (Santa Claus, anybody?) Really, who wants a sobbing preschooler on their hands? Heck, our guy just saw "Curious George" at the movie theater with his grandparents and reported back to us that it was very scary.

I'm mostly shocked and outraged because I've been duped! Why did I never suspect what the teachers were up to? I'm normally so very suspicious.

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