Bob the Rooster
The rooster is a symbol of France. Of gallic pride. The rugby players of the French national team will harbor the rooster as a sign on their jersey during the 2023 rugby world cup this Fall. There is even a sports apparel company called “Le Coq Sportif”, which is the supplier of choice of some French national teams. The French rooster, also called Le Coq Gaulois, is the subject of all kinds of jokes, including the one about the rooster being the only animal that can still sing proudly even though it lives on a pile of shit. The rest of Europe finds it funny, because there is a hint of truth in it. Other French cultural animal icons include the squirrel, used in the past by a famous French banking institution to entice people to contribute to their savings. I remember lots of advertising as a kid. Instead of a piggy bank, I had a squirrel bank. How could you not give your hard-earned coins to this cute little furry thing, which would accumulate nuts to survive a potentially hard winter? Nobody bothered to explain to me then that the squirrel i.e. the bank would keep most of my nuts and that I would be left with not much of anything. Or the Chicken, the affectionate nickname for French gendarmes and policemen. When the police moved to their new headquarters in Paris during the 19th century, it was established on the site of the poultry market. Parisians very quickly called the new tenants by the name of the former ones, and this caught quickly all over the country. Last but not least, France is looking for a mascot for the 2024 Olympic games. The games will take place all over France, but mainly in Paris. There is a rumor that there were talks about selecting Rémy, the rat from the movie Ratatouille, as the main mascot. Or maybe they will pick a pigeon.
Back to our singing friend. Last summer, a neighbor of mine, in Paradou, my little village in Provence, got himself a rooster. Not just any rooster. An especially loud rooster with a dysfunctional inner clock. Now I have heard the jokes about Parisians going on vacations to a rural area and complaining about waking up early (too early) to the sound of a singing rooster. I used to side with the rooster on that one. I changed my mind. Yes, I got the irony quickly. And very early. Like 4 am. Way before sunrise. Since we sleep with our windows opened, to let the fresh air of the night come in, it was…disruptive. Robert the rooster a.k.a. Bob the sleep destroyer had moved in to foil my vacations.
This is when I made a mistake. I based the future of my summer in France on hopes.
My first hope was generated by the old lady living down my street. She promptly acknowledged that the rooster had become a nuisance to the whole neighborhood. It felt like Bob had set up an amplifier and some loud speakers in his courtyard. Like a rock star. Indeed, he became famous in the village very quickly. The old lady sent a written note to the owner, telling him that if he did not find a way to make his rooster shut up, she would call the Chicken / the local gendarmes. Of course, nothing happened after her ultimatum. She then called the gendarmes. It appeared that the gendarmes had other kind of geese to chase.
My next strategy was based on personal experience and years of studies by neuroscientists. I proceeded to instruct my brain to shut off the sound of the rooster. Just like my brain got used to the muezzin call for prayer when I lived in Jordan, in the Middle East. No matter where you turned, there was a mosque within a radius of 300 meters or less, so there was no escape to the 5 am blast through loud speakers. But, as recorded by science, one’s brain gets used to it and quickly ignores it. That did not work with Bob. Because his pattern was 4 am, non- stop to 6 am, every 5 seconds. I would get up groggy and grumpy until my first cup of coffee. Okay, maybe the groggy part had nothing to do with Bob’s wake up calls. I am always groggy in the morning. I usually get up around 8 in the morning and wake up around 10.
I started to fantasize that the old lady would set up a commando of fellow neighbors, most of them over 60 years of age, to sneak in “Chez Bob” in the middle of night and kidnap him. Or worse. I did not volunteer to set it up, despite my very small experience among special forces operatives, because I thought this endeavor could easily go wrong and we could end up in the Chicken station, answering hard questions about our night activities. Plus, Bob’s owner might have a hunting rifle or a Doberman, or both.
My wife came up with a solution, of course. We started sleeping with the windows closed but with a ceiling fan on. The hum from the fan would drown any noise in a very rhythmic fashion and keep us cool at the same time.
When we came back this year, I did not notice at first. I mean, it is hard for our brains to realize that something is not there. But then it dawned on me. No rooster call… No sound before the first daylight. Ahhhhhhhh. How exquisite! What had happened to Bob? It was a mystery. Until I asked Elsbeth, my charming Swiss friend and neighbor, if she knew. She was not 100% sure, but from what she had gathered, Bob had finished his life the way a lot of his peers do in the South of France. On a plate, served with a delicious wine sauce, topped by a bottle of Rosé de Provence. Or red. Both are totally acceptable with poultry. For more details about Bob’s passing, please google recipes for “Coq au vin”.