Dear Neighbor Of Mine Who Recently Bought a Rooster:

Why?

I could end the letter there, really, because I think that sums it up. I first heard your new addition to your home Monday morning when I was coming back from my run. I’ve heard other roosters on my run, but never so close to my home. My first thought was, “Aw, crap.”

The first time I ever heard a rooster in my neighborhood, it freaked me the hell out. What was a rooster doing in the middle of a busy Los Angeles neighborhood, crowing like crazy? Why would someone have a rooster in their home, or backyard? I still have these questions, to the point that I’ve been trying to find the answers online. I don’t want to be culturally insensitive, even though I’m currently paid to be rather culturally insensitive for Carlos Mencia, and recently pissed off a small section of the Filipino community. Despite recent apperances, I’m still a pretty nice, liberal-guilted white girl. So I had to know: is a rooster a pet? And if so, why would you want a pet that makes everybody hate you?

I don’t have a big, barking, angry dog for the same reason. It makes me anxious when I go home to my mom and sister’s, where their dogs bark all day long. I don’t like my neighbor’s yippie dog, particularly when the neighbor goes out back to yell at her yippie dog. Yelling and barking make for an annoying Saturday morning. That’s my EW time, rooster-neighbor.

Your one saving grace is that I cannot hear your rooster from the back bedroom. But I can hear your rooster when I’m in my living room/kitchen (we live in a really small house, Roosterians.) When I’m making my coffee, anytime from 7:30 until as late as 9:40, I’ve heard your rooster all this week.

I live in a thriving metropolis for a reason. I went to a high school where I had to drive past cows every morning. And I swore to myself on the thousandth time I passed a cow that I’d never live in a place where farm animals were a part of my every day. So why have you brought the farm to Eagle Rock? We live six feet from a highway. What kind of life are you offering for your rooster? He cannot play and jump and skip and… play rooster games. All he can do is crow about the morning for hours and hours and hours. So that’s what he does. Every day. Until I want to find which house is yours and set fire to it. And I’ve got friends who lost their house to a fire. Do you see how insensitive your cock has made me? That’s right; I said it. I hate your cock.

I want to get some precious, precious sleep this weekend, and I was hoping to do a little of it on the couch, in front of the TiVo, while I pretended to catch up on three months’ worth of Gilmore Girls. But if I even step so much as a foot into the kitchen tomorrow morning to shoot my cat full of insulin and make a pot of coffee, I’m going to have to listen to the screeching, living alarm clock you’ve decided to purchase for our entire neighborhood. This does not seem fair. I know sometimes we’re the loud house. We have people come over on a school night sometimes, and they don’t leave early and some of them are seriously loud talkers. And we’re not the quietest ones either when we’re on the porch, talking late at night. But we try to be. We try to be respectful. We do not unleash wild animals whose sole purpose is announcing the dawn at the top of their lungs. We wouldn’t do that. Why would you?

Does a rooster do other things? Is he funny? Does he cuddle? Is he to keep the coyotes away from your yippie dogs? Does he play checkers or is he really good at digging holes or what the hell do you need a rooster for? It’s 2006 and you live in the second largest city in America. Whatever you need is less than two miles away, I promise you. I don’t want to ask if this rooster is involved in illegal activites because, again, I am worried about being culturally insensitive, but I don’t see why else you’ve got a rooster in your backyard unless he’s really good at beating the shit out of other roosters in order to make you money.

In which case… do you know if I could get my cat Taylor into that business? Because he’s got a mean left hook.

But don’t get any ideas. I’m not letting your cock near my pussy.

Exhausted,

Pam

P.S. I swear I wasn’t writing this entire entry just so I could write that last sentence. It just sort of organically came about and I couldn’t not write it.

P.P.S. Please get your trash cans out of my parking spot.

P.P.P.S. Please don’t buy any more roosters.

P.P.P.S. Is there any way your rooster could go on vacation on the weekends? I’ll be more than happy to set him up with Dr. Rhee, my cat’s vet. He’s got lovely cages where your rooster can frolic for a couple of days.

P.P.P.P.S. Come on, you gotta give me props on the cock/pussy line. That was pretty funny, wasn’t it?

P.P.P.P.P.S. Seriously, though. Get rid of that bird or I’m going to make Coq au Vin.