Friday Ku-Tip: How to catch a peacock

Last summer I found a peacock. Found as in I was driving to work down our dusty gravel road when a random peacock darted out in front of me and decided to waddle (do peacocks waddle?) down the middle of the road. It was like a peacock on parade. And it wouldn't get out of my way.

So during my 35-minute commute to work, I had nothing to do but dream up how I would catch this peacock and make it my pet and hug it and love it and call it George. Or Petey. Yep, Petey the peacock. I like the sound of that.

Since Brady was out of town for the week doing manual labor for his parents in Garden City, I figured this was the perfect opportunity to surprise him with our very own peacock upon his return. Surprised wouldn't even have captured his reaction appropriately, especially since Brady has always openly declared his complete hatred of owning any type of fowl. Ducks. Guineas. Chickens. And peacocks.

Ignoring his complete hatred for all things fowl, I decided I wanted to try to catch the peacock anyway, and relied on the power of Facebook and my Facebook friends for advice on how to actually achieve this.

I received a variety of suggestions in less than a few hours. My favorites included:

• Using cheerios to lure it down the road into a pen
• Chasing it with a fishing net and strategically making sure this net landed on the peacock
• Enlisting the help of a full-length mirror to make the peacock think it had a friend it needed to follow
• Using the full-length mirror to make the peacock think there were double the cheerios

Yep. I now had ideas. I was going to catch a peacock.

I called Brady to advise him of my plan. Without taking a breath, he told me I was not allowed to catch the peacock.

Then I hear some talking in the background. Brady laughs and gets back on the phone.

"Jenna," he says, "you're still not allowed to catch the peacock, but Deb's here, and she's supposedly an expert pheasant catcher. She says the key to catching any bird is to make sure you grab both its legs at the same time."

Thanks Deb. Great advice.

I never saw the peacock on my way home from work. I didn't see the peacock the next morning. I never saw the poor little lost peacock again. And, too bad. Cause it would have liked being my pet.

Ku-Tip: Never ask your friends for advice on how to catch a peacock. They'll tell you anything just to see if you'll embarrass yourself. Some will even offer to show up with a camera to capture the moment and call 911 if necessary.

465 words.