Easy come, easy go

A couple of hours later there was another knock at the door. I fought my way past two frenetic canines and opened the door. It was yet another middle-aged lady* and she too was lacking the expected parcel, stylus and electronic pad. "Hello" she said "Have you got my chicken?". I confirmed that I had and that it was merrily pecking away in one of my runs. She then went on to regale me with an unnecessary narrative of how distraught her daughter would be if the bird could not be found.**

I then threw her a curve ball by suggesting that she came back when it was dark as it would be far easier to retrieve the roosting bird from the coop than to chase it up and down the run. She showed signs of  a visible mental hiccup as she assimilated this suggestion,  agreed to my plan and departed.

As I returned to my desk I considered the fact that from her perspective it might have looked a little odd that I was not prepared to instantly return the abscondee to her less than perfect care. However she was obviously unaware that I have a fucking job of work to do and have far better things to do that run around after middle-aged women and their errant poultry problems.

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* actually there were two of them but one of them remained silent and looked as if she really didn't want to be there.
** I did what any man would do here and tuned 80% 90% 95% of this wittering out and waited for a gap where I was expected to insert a vague non-committal response.