Honolulu Lite
With a federal law about to be passed banning interstate transportation of fighting roosters, Hawaii breeders are going to have to come up with some clever ways to get their birds to certain states on the mainland and to Guam, where cockfighting is legal. Fighting cocks may
be stuck in HawaiiI picture elaborate Monty Python-style sketches playing themselves out at the Honolulu Airport's agricultural inspection stations.
Inspector: Sorry sir, you can't take that bird to the mainland, it's a fighting cock.
Breeder: No it isn't.
Inspector: Yes it is.
Breeder: He doesn't fight. He's just sort of argumentative.
Inspector: You raised it specifically to fight other birds.
Breeder: No I didn't. I raised it to wake me up in the morning. Makes a lot of bloody noise at sunrise, Wilber does.
Inspector: Wilber?
Breeder: That's his name. Wilber. He's me pet.
Inspector: Pet or not, he still can't get on the plane.
Breeder: But he's a seeing-eye rooster, that one.
Inspector: Seeing-eye rooster? Never bloody heard of such a thing.
Breeder: It's true. Saved my life more than once, I can tell you. I can't get on without him.
Inspector: Let me check the rules. (Flips through a booklet.) Nope. No seeing-eye roosters allowed. Sorry.
An hour later the breeder returns to board another flight.
Inspector: Where are you going?
Breeder: On the bloody plane, aren't I?
Inspector: Not with the fighting cock under your arm.
Breeder: It's not a fighting cock. It's a dog.
Inspector: It's not a dog, it's a bloody Rhode Island Red. I know a rooster when I see one.
Breeder: It's a dog. Look at the tail. Look at the ears.
Inspector: Those aren't ears. Those are pieces of carpet attached to the animal's head with duct tape. And the tail is electrical cord. I don't even want to know how you attached that bit.
Breeder: It's a pure-bred show dog. Takes years to get the ears to grow like that.
Inspector: Yeah? Well, one of the ears just fell off. And if you don't remove the electrical cord from where you stuck it, I'm calling the Humane Society.
Breeder: All right, then. It's a bird. But it's not a fighting cock. It's a chicken. A performing chicken.
Inspector: It looks like a bloody rooster to me.
Breeder: That's part of its act. It's a cross-dressing chicken. She's famous on the chicken circus circuit. She's performing with the Cirque de Poultry in Las Vegas.
Inspector: Cirque de Poultry? The show where they fling themselves off trampolines and trapezes and fly all about?
Breeder: That's right, mate.
Inspector: Why didn't you say so! Bloody fantastic! Better hurry on your way, then. The rest of the show's performers have already boarded.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com