I Liked It Better When I Didn't Know This Answer

Back in the mid-1950s before the three major television networks signed off every night at midnight with mesmerizing test patterns, I frittered away a lot of time thinking about chickens. Not real ones. Lord, no. The real birds are loud, stupid, and at their best when served with Granny’s mashed potatoes and gravy. I mean the philosophical kind.

I must’ve been seven, maybe eight. I was sitting on a porch on a Saturday afternoon in the El Paso heat, when my old man hit me with it: “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

You know family like this, I’m sure. My old man would grin like a mule eating pepperoni and claim, “Nobody knows!” Then he’d pause, looking about as wise as a preacher who’s lost his place, before telling me that was one of life’s great mysteries. Even before acne, I was smart enough not to take the bait.

I stood mute then, but the question has bounced in my brain for a good seventy years. No baloney. I’d be driving somewhere, or pondering a menu at some diner, and there it was again. Chicken. Egg. Egg. Chicken. Harder to shake off than a head of wet hair.

So here’s the deal: science has a definitive answer. Not a “well, maybe.” They know. And it surprised me. Especially since it wasn’t Dr. Fauci breaking the yolk on the science, so to speak.

The egg won.

Don’t flap your breakfast toast at me just yet. Because most people picture it wrong. They imagine a barnyard hen standing around, and then kaboom, she lays the first egg ever. Nope. Not how it works. Nature doesn’t hand out name tags. “Congratulations, Mildred, as of 9 AM you’re a chicken.” Doesn’t happen.

You see, eggs are ancient. Fish were laying them half a billion years ago. I got holey socks that feel almost that old. Dinosaurs did it before birds even existed. So asking which came first, chicken or egg, is like asking if Chapter Twenty came before the alphabet. Alphabet had a head start. Eggs were showing up at parties before chickens figured out how to dress.

Evolution is painfully slow. Each generation looks basically like the last one. Little genetic hiccups pile up over thousands of years, then hundreds of thousands. So you’ve got this creature back then that looked like a chicken. Clucked like one. Chased grasshoppers with that same frenetic energy. But biologically? Nope, hadn’t landed yet. Scientists call it a proto-chicken. I say it’s close enough to fool the neighbors.

Anyway. Mr. and Mrs. Proto-Chicken got together one evening. I’ll skip the details since this is a family publication. Somewhere in that cellular handoff, a tiny DNA glitch went nova without fanfare. A cosmic typo. And when Mrs. Proto-Chicken laid that egg, the thing inside was, according to biology, the first actual chicken.

So the first real chicken spent its whole childhood trapped in a shell laid by something that wasn’t a chicken.

We’re spinning the same platter, right? The egg came first. No question.

Of course, people, being people, still needed to argue. If a “chicken egg” means an egg from a chicken, then fine, the bird came first. But if it means an egg containing a chicken, the egg wins. Scientists like the second option because biology cares about what’s inside, not who sat on the nest. In short, we have two barbers with empty chairs arguing if a crew cut is the same as a flat top. Humans are weird. The shop floor’s covered with hair that needs sweeping.

Maybe it’s my OCD, maybe it’s a genetic glitch, maybe it’s a blessing, but I’ve always enjoyed dumb puzzles because they often reveal that common sense can point you exactly the wrong way. Our brains are great, no question. I’d rather have one than not. But an aging brain is also a GPS fully capable of steering you into your home office instead of your bathroom at three in the morning. Mine sure is.

Yesterday I snuggled into the old recliner in my office to read away the afternoon. Stuck my nose in a book the way I have since Dick and Jane back in first grade. Read a few pages before I realized I had grabbed my copy of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason instead of the Stephen King novel I wanted to revisit. True story.

So, seventy years after folks were waving “I Like Ike” signs again, after all that deep questioning and massive confusion, I finally got my answer. The egg won.

Sitting on the porch with my old man, that answer would’ve sounded like science fiction to the kid who once was. Now it’s elementary biology.

***

I aced high school biology in Mr. Finch’s class, and I liked it because it gave me answers. I prefer things simple, as I bet you do too. A leading to B. Chicken or egg. But life is more like kudzu in Louisiana. Tangled, messy, growing when you aren’t looking. Like evolution and history. Grief, love, packing on the years until you groan bending over to pick up a dropped fork. Little shifts you don’t notice until one morning you look in the mirror and hardly recognize the face staring back at you.

And yet, I have to admit I’m a little disappointed. I liked thinking there were a few things we’d never figure out. Like what happens when you forget what you walked into a room for. Or why novelty songs like The Clovers’ “Love Potion Number Nine” from 1959 stick in my brain like hot rivets while my short-term memory saunters out the door.

Now that last question needs scientific investigation. Preferably one that comes with a coffee break and iced apple danish.

Chet

P.S. A small ask, and then I'll leave you alone about it. Wicked Imagination has been out for weeks now, and it has almost no reviews on Amazon, which is the reason it's invisible to anyone who doesn't already know me. If you read it, two honest sentences over there would do more for the book than anything I know how to do myself. Honest is the operative word. I'd rather have your real opinion at three stars than a kind one at five, and I'll know the difference. The book's page is here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H3WB12WV — scroll down to "Write a customer review." If you haven't read it, ignore all this and I'll see you next Tuesday.