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Along
the Boomer Trail ...
Chickens — Broiled, Braised and Bartered
By
Dick Methia
The
next time you get a bill from your internist, send him or her
a chicken instead of a check. Crazy? Not to Sue Lowden. Lowden
was the Republican Party’s choice in Nevada to knock Senate
Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid from his power perch in
Washington’s chicken coup.
The presumptive favorite to win the GOP primary in June, Lowden took a nosedive
in the polls when she reminded a campaign audience that granny would “bring
a chicken to the doctor” if she couldn’t pay for the visit, a barter
arrangement that Lowden said she endorsed.
After Lowden was made the butt of jokes on Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show,” her
campaign released a testimonial from a rural Nevada doctor who claimed he supported
bartering products for service. Seems this country doctor had happily accepted
as payment items such as hay bales, barn cleaning and shoeing horses.
I was fine with this doctor’s traditional economics until I read that Doc
had once accepted a bathtub in lieu of cash for medical care. Don’t know
about you, but I’d be just a wee bit reluctant to let a physician’s
hands probe me if he didn’t even own a bathtub.
Lowden ultimately lost the primary to Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle, who has
a few wacky ideas of her own, but this chicken barter notion got me wondering.
How do you apportion payment for different ailments?
Does my doctor get a whole chicken for a physical but only a wing for the flu?
If I bring my cardiologist a turkey, would he misinterpret the message? How about
slow cooker chicken for those long waits in the doctor’s office? Or jerked
chicken for bungled treatment in the ER?
Paying with poultry is just too darned complicated for me, but bartering is beginning
to make some sense. On April 15 next year, instead of the customary tax payment
(or a chicken), I’m going to send the IRS a list of “honey-do items” I’d
be willing to perform. I’ll bet the chief tax man’s office in Washington
could use a fresh coat of paint.
In the back seat of my car I’ve started carrying a Styrofoam cooler packed
with dry ice and a couple of sirloin steaks – for my next encounter with
a state trooper on I-80.
My dentist’s new Jaguar desperately needs simonizing, and my local Raley’s
would probably trade a bag or two of groceries if I kept herd on all those marauding
shopping carts in the parking lot rolling into customers’ cars.
Barter may also be an effective way for politicians to pay for their increasingly
costly campaigns. In exchange for large contributions, candidates could barter
influence and special legislation. On second thought, that’s exactly how
it’s done now, isn’t it? Maybe Sue Lowden was a better fit for the
U.S. Senate than Nevada’s Republican voters realized.
Truth is, I feel bad for Sue Lowden. She was just trying to be helpful. I’ll
be curious to learn how many of her campaign bills she’ll try to pay with
chicken parts.
You can read more of Dick Methia’s work at www.
AlongtheBoomerTrail.com.
He can also be e-mailed at Dick@AlongtheBoomerTrail.com.
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