I was desperate for a job when I graduated from high school -- so desperate that I finally took a job with the local poultry farm.

This place had four large chicken barns, each about the size of a football field. Each was filled with 40,000 chickens in cages, stacked about 8-feet-high. And every one of these chickens was psychotic. They spent their lives cooped up in a cage with other deranged chickens, trying to peck each other to death -- unsuccessful only because they'd been de-beaked. And any time any non-chicken (e.g., me) came walking within 10 feet of their cages, they would completely and totally lose it. They'd squawk, thrash and throw themselves against the cage in a frenzied attempt to kill whatever infidel had entered their domain. The noise and stench were mind-bending.

Not only did I have to shovel the chicken doo-doo, I had to BREATHE. And with every chicken within 10 feet throwing a raving hissy fit, the poop and dust and feathers and other unimaginably rude stu