In 1964, Time Magazine published an article about Dr. Erich Baeumer, a physician from Wiedenau, Germany, who, during his 60-plus years of chicken observation, recorded many hours of chickens talking. He subsequently ascribed meaning to the sounds he heard, and developed “sentences” that could be related to photographs of chickens performing specific actions — this to prove his linguistic theory that all chickens speak an international language made up of 30 basic sentences.

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Shortly after the holidays last year, I went to a luncheon with some girlfriends. The conversation turned to what their husbands had given them for Christmas, with jewelry, perfume, spa treatments, and the like being the norm. When I told them my beloved had gifted me with a ½-horsepower submersible pump, they quickly jumped to the conclusion that it was one of those deals where the husband gives the gift that he himself actually wants, or even worse, that he, in some deluded state, feels certain his wife has been craving, such as a new vacuum cleaner.

I quickly set them straight. I asked for the pump, and my sweet husband (admittedly groaning somewhat) got it for me.

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