“Well, I have a theory. When you have that much money, what is it you’re trying to buy by making even more? You already have the multiple big houses, the servants, the private jet. What you really want now is adulation; you want the world to bow before your success. And so the thought that people in the media, in Congress and even in the White House are saying critical things about people like you drives you wild.”

by Matthew J.X. Malady

People are always saying things on the Internet all the time. But they are such teases. We like details. So we have to ask.

There are two chickens in my bathtub in need of a home. Any takers?

— Alice Hines (@alicehines) September 11, 2013

They are actually very pretty: pic.twitter.com/LBSYshKqR7

— Alice Hines (@alicehines) September 11, 2013

Alice! So what happened here?
Two weeks ago my boyfriend, Jay Dockendorf, came home to our apartment with two live chickens. He’s directing a feature about two Muslim teens in Brooklyn, and one scene takes place in a live poultry store, leading to a few other scenes involving chickens. Jay bought two chickens from the store ($15 each). They were really beautiful, with taupe feathers and red beaks. Because I’m a freelance writer who works from home — and a very nice girlfriend — I was in charge of babysitting the chickens when they weren’t on set.

At first it was fun: They were docile and made a lot of sweet clucking sounds. They also had distinct personalities — one was quiet and lazy and emitted a near constant stream of diarrhea. The other was more alert, poking her head around and sometimes pecking at the other one, which we tried to discourage. On day two of chicken cohabitation, I woke up to find Chicken #1 escaped from her box. She was sitting on the living room rug and you could see where she had wandered in the apartment by the little puddles of excrement. We had run out of boxes to put them in, so I moved them to the bathtub. At that point, I think I texted Jay something like “Please take care of the chickens!!” and tweeted a photo to see if anyone wanted to adopt them.

After you asked people on Twitter if they wanted the chickens, did you get any responses? And what ultimately happened to those chickens?

My tweet didn’t attract any serious takers. As it turns out, finding a home for chickens in NYC is not easy. Most animal shelters in New York don’t accept them, despite the fact that there is a lot of demand now from failed urban farmers. When you Google “chicken shelter Brooklyn,” you get a bunch of snarky articles about “hipsters who can’t cope.” I guess this is us, though we never claimed we could cope in the first place. I suggested giving the chickens back to the live poultry place, but Jay and the rest of the crew had grown attached and wanted to save them from their original fate. I may have also suggested letting the chickens loose in Fort Greene Park at a moment of weakness induced by fumes from the bathroom.

The saga has a happy ending: The afternoon after one escaped, Jacob Albert, our friend and a producer of the movie, found a community farm in Bed Stuy that accepted chickens. I think they were relieved to be out of the bathtub.

Lesson learned (if any)?

Chicken shit smells worse than anything you could imagine. Also, chickens are really friendly! They are OK being picked up and pet.

Just one more thing.
My rate for chicken babysitting going forward is $50/hour plus $10 per chicken tweet.

Matthew J.X. Malady is a writer and editor in New York.

Tomato/Potato Hybrid Completely Natural And Safe, Says Man Who Is Almost Certainly Not A Prisoner Of A Gigantic Tomato/Potato Hybrid Monster Bent On Enslaving Humanity

I guess all the warm weather coming up will only help these things grow, right?

So what are you doing this weekend?

by Awl Sponsors

This post is sponsored by Kia.

There are lots of valid reasons for driving the same car for a real long time. For starters, it’s probably all paid off, and not having a monthly bill allows you to spend extra money on fun stuff like vacations. Maybe you’re so overwhelmed with work, school, and/or family stuff that the thought of car shopping is daunting. Or, perhaps your car is like an old friend that has sentimental value — you even gave it a name!

Despite all of these reasons, the time will come when you must part ways and treat yourself to a new ride. If affordability, style, safety, and a smooth ride are on your new car wish list, you should start your search with KIA’s Optima and Soul vehicles.

But first you have to let go of your old clunker. Here is how you know when the time has come.

1. The cassette player is stuck, forcing you to listen to side 2 of the Beastie Boys’ License to Ill over and over. A brand new car today might have a CD player if you’re still hooked on that format, but don’t count on getting to play that cassette collection you picked up at a local garage sale for $3. Better still, you can connect your music players via USB connection or tune into built-in Satellite radio systems. In the KIA Soul, for instance, you have the option for a Premium UVO eServices Infotainment System — voice command, Bluetooth, rear camera display, and more!

2. Friends can hear you coming from a mile away, thanks to your squeaky breaks and faulty muffler. Once your car is, in a sense, calling out to you, asking to be put out of its misery, you should listen and heed its warning. In all seriousness, you don’t want to be on the road in a vehicle that would have trouble passing a routine inspection. Safety comes first, even if that means taking on the expense of purchasing or leasing a new automobile. Better still, choosing one with a great safety rating like the KIA Optima, which earned a 2013 IIHS Top Safety Pick+ award, can allow you to start driving with peace of mind again.

3. Your bumper sticker says “Clinton/Gore.” You know how you feel about the guy who walks around in his Springsteen World Tour ’91 concert T-shirt? You’re the driver equivalent of that! In other words, your car symbolizes that you’re living in the past. The same can be said if you have your college logo on display, and you graduated over a decade ago. It’s time to move on.

4. You’ve cracked six digits on your odometer. Owning a vehicle with lasting power is a wonderful thing — that is, until it starts nickel-and-diming you with high-cost maintenance repairs. That’s bound to happen more and more with every 10,000 miles you put on the car. Don’t press your luck if you’ve reached the 100,000 or more milestone already.

5. The check engine light has been on since 2008. After nearly dozen attempts to figure out the root cause of the dreaded “check engine” light (and being asked if you closed the gas cap every time!), you officially given up worrying about it. Except when you have to go on a long trip, because what if it really is the engine? Speaking of engines, KIA Optima features a GDI 2.0L Turbo Engine, so you have the fuel efficiency of a 4-cylinder, but the power of a V6.

If any of these signs sound familiar, it’s time to put the old gal in park and drive off into the new car sunset. Start your car shopping at KIA, where you can choose from among high quality, affordable, and fun vehicles like the Soul and Optima to suit your needs.

“This Sunday is shaping up to be an embarrassment of riches for television viewers. And that’s forcing some hard decisions about how to game-plan the day, typically the most popular evening on the couch.”

“I realized in life there’s only two ways for a girl to go, and that’s to be a dumb bitch or just a bitch. I decided that from now on I’m just gonna be a bitch, ’cause at least from now on guys would be intimidated by me. At least I would have the upper hand.”

— Feeling okay about the kids today and social media? WELL DEFINITELY DON’T READ THIS THEN, OH JESUS, IT’S REAL BAD OUT THERE. Also who knew that Ask.fm was a hotbed of teen viciousness? (Teens. Teens knew. Teeeeens.) Oh man, poor teens. 🙁

“An obituary on Sept. 20 about Hiroshi Yamauchi, the longtime president of Nintendo, included a quotation from a 1988 New York Times article that inaccurately described the Nintendo video game Super Mario Bros. 2. The brothers Mario and Luigi, who appear in this and other Nintendo games, are plumbers, not janitors.”

I don’t know why it’s so sad, I don’t even really like her! Here you go.

A Complete Guide To People That The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza Has Commanded To Call Their Offices

A

Todd Akin, call your office. http://t.co/ZkwFPZRD

— The Fix (@TheFix) August 19, 2012

B

Doug Band, call your office. http://t.co/ebaQQfsjby

— The Fix (@TheFix) September 23, 2013

Haley Barbour, call your office. http://ht.ly/4egEP (Hat tip @benpolitico)

— The Fix (@TheFix) March 14, 2011

Georgetown basketball, call your office. http://t.co/YsAFuYfZ

— The Fix (@TheFix) November 30, 2012

Michael Bloomberg, call your office. http://t.co/iTOIuCEB

— The Fix (@TheFix) January 28, 2013

Cory Booker, call your office. http://t.co/GBpXAk1cpU

— The Fix (@TheFix) August 29, 2013

Scott Brown, call your office. http://t.co/RAU7Yj1s

— The Fix (@TheFix) September 25, 2012

C

Herman Cain, call your office. http://t.co/m3mvXjp6

— The Fix (@TheFix) October 31, 2011

Jon Corzine, call your office. http://t.co/09DgwMc8

— The Fix (@TheFix) March 24, 2012

Charlie Crist, call your office. Literally. http://ht.ly/4N2vk

— The Fix (@TheFix) May 4, 2011

D

Scott DesJarlais, call your office. http://t.co/J8wBIrxo

— The Fix (@TheFix) October 10, 2012

F

Bob Filner, call your office. http://t.co/urIheZzhiC

— The Fix (@TheFix) July 12, 2013

Elise Foley, call your office. RT @elisefoley: @ShawnFetta @TheFix just a pet peeve! Wasn’t trying to be a jerk, sorry.

— The Fix (@TheFix) September 20, 2013

Rob Ford, call your office. http://t.co/6kpW2LWdqb

— The Fix (@TheFix) May 17, 2013

Foster Freiss, call your office. http://t.co/Y4rLnlfX

— The Fix (@TheFix) February 16, 2012

G

Newt Gingrich, call your office. http://t.co/cAWT1Ppn

— The Fix (@TheFix) November 16, 2011

Former OH Congressional candidate Tom Ganley, call your office. http://ht.ly/4fc27

— The Fix (@TheFix) March 15, 2011

Vince Gray, call your office. http://t.co/npK6IB8M

— The Fix (@TheFix) July 19, 2012

Alison Lundergan Grimes, call your office. http://t.co/F096hMVZmP

— The Fix (@TheFix) July 2, 2013

H

Dean Heller, call your office. Literally. http://t.co/RTZy7pyDBK

— The Fix (@TheFix) March 11, 2013

K

Progress Kentucky, call your office. http://t.co/OAF1eOomdX

— The Fix (@TheFix) April 12, 2013

Peter Kinder, call your office. http://ht.ly/4sbFD

— The Fix (@TheFix) April 3, 2011

L

Rick Larsen, call your office. http://t.co/ynnZdhzM

— The Fix (@TheFix) December 8, 2011

Um, whoah. Rep. Chris Lee, call your office. http://ht.ly/3TqiS

— The Fix (@TheFix) February 9, 2011

M

Terry McAuliffe, call your office. http://t.co/lLrxuB6qp5

— The Fix (@TheFix) August 2, 2013

Claire McCaskill, call your office. http://ht.ly/4iYub

— The Fix (@TheFix) March 21, 2011

Bob McDonnell, call your office. Again. And again. You get the idea. http://t.co/w7v8sX6TsT

— The Fix (@TheFix) September 1, 2013

Rob McKenna, call your office. http://t.co/HOpwOUR7

— The Fix (@TheFix) July 17, 2012

Richard Mourdock, call your office. http://t.co/n58HzXkJ

— The Fix (@TheFix) October 24, 2012

O

Martin O’Malley, call your office. http://t.co/XKb7Evwn

— The Fix (@TheFix) September 2, 2012

President Obama, call your office. http://t.co/9ZpCVhy6

— The Fix (@TheFix) July 27, 2012

P

Horizon PAC, call your office. http://t.co/Pmofa7Ua

— The Fix (@TheFix) April 19, 2012

R

Mitt Romney, call your office. http://t.co/DnXmMCzT

— The Fix (@TheFix) February 1, 2012

S

Rick Santorum, call your office. http://t.co/WN3EQ0ZQ

— The Fix (@TheFix) March 5, 2012

Rick Sheehy, call your office. http://t.co/PxSfmgh5

— The Fix (@TheFix) February 2, 2013

W

Anthony Weiner, call your office. http://ow.ly/5ffkv

— The Fix (@TheFix) June 10, 2011

David Wu, call your office. http://bit.ly/rsBQY5

— The Fix (@TheFix) July 23, 2011

Elon Green is a contributing editor at Longform.