Far Far Away

I may have mentioned I do not like birds. Actually, I am not a fan of anything that flies. Except for butterflies. I do actually have an affinity for penguins, though I'm pretty sure if I was sitting outside at my favorite restaurant and a penguin came up to me and threw its shit in my face I would despise penguins as well. Luckily for me, this will more than likely never happen.

I have been pooped on five times. I have had birds fly into my hair. I was witness to not one but two baby bird murders. Or suicides. Hard to know for sure. I woke one morning to the sound of banging only to discover a crazed Canadian bird ramming itself into my bedroom window (I know it was Canadian because I looked it up and it's always the Canadians), even though there were visible panes on it and a big ass banner that read "This is a glass window, bird. Here's your sign." Alas, this bird was not bright and it flew into the window for more than 35 minutes leaving blood smears from top to bottom. I do not lie. I finally went outside and yelled STOP! but that bird did not care. I think maybe he was having a bad day. Like I was.

I had a cat bring a live bird into my house only to let it loose in the kitchen where I was calmly eating pancakes at the table. The bird flew right toward me and into the blinds and said cat leapt onto the table to retrieve it. Once, at my old job, I went to walk in the back door and looked down in time to just miss stepping on a bird. It was laying on its side, one eye looking straight up at me. I told my boss that it needed help. "I think it's hurt or something." He said, "It's napping." I said I didn't know a lot about birds, by choice, but I was pretty sure they don't actually lay down in the fetal position to catch some shuteye in the middle of a business restaurant patio. He walked over and stomped near the bird, not on it, and it jumped right up and flew away. What the eff was that bird doing?!? Laying there just to freak me out? Ooh. I was mad.

Then there was the bird that stalked me on that same patio. Followed me around, hopping and opening and closing its beak. It was a huge bird. Not like bald eagle huge. It was a tiny little thing, just as big around as it was tall. It looked...pissed. I told a friend that I thought something was wrong with it. (You might ask why someone who hates birds so much would try so hard to help them. I have no answer.) He followed the bird around until it stopped long enough for him to pick it up. The bird had mass bread trapped in its beak. My friend got a little stick and pried it out of the bird's mouth and then set it free. That is probably the happiest bird I have ever encountered. Of course, if I had a life where I could just fly around and shit all over people's stuff I'd probably be happy too, or at least a little hysterical.

And then there was the pigeon whose nest I knocked out of my window sill two seconds before I saw the eggs in it. I had a window air conditioning unit and pulled the accordion shade to the side and knocked the nest out with a plastic spoon. Once it started to fall I saw three eggs inside it. I felt awful. But that bird had been there for days cooing and fluttering around. I needed sleep. I opened the blinds a smidge to see where the bird had flown off to and was met by two little beady eyes. It was sitting on top of the air conditioner staring into my window. No joke! Right out of a Hitchcock movie.

And lastly, the house I owned that was infested with a century's old nursery colony of bats. I went outside and watched bricks turn into bats like an Escher drawing. I quit counting at 74.

Well, when I was pregnant, I went a little overboard with the Save the Animals movement. I was forever carrying spiders upstairs that had gotten lost in the bathtub. Catching moths and inevitably crushing them as I tried to set them free. Well, one night there was this gigantic fly in the house. I tried forever to get it. My mother even tried to knock it off her incredibly high ceiling with a towel. It was pointless. Well, the next morning my mother told me the fly had died. I was sad. Turns out it had fallen into the water I'd forgotten to drain out of the sink after doing the dishes. Rats. (Since I had baby though, I have decided that anything that can potentially land on her and piss her off must die.)

Well, its ghost is haunting me now. I just spent the last 20 minutes trying to get a damn fly out of my refrigerator. It flew in as I was filling my glass with water. I was beating everything in there with a near empty roll of papertowels. I managed to hit one of the refrigerator light bulbs, first making it super bright, which made me very happy, and then blowing it out, which made me very sad. I would've killed it in there with a magazine and thrown away all the food and smeared the little fly remains on my front door just to prove a point, but I didn't. It is now making the rounds in my apartment. I'll probably eat it in my sleep. I do kind of feel sorry for the little fella. Like I was telling a friend who told me she saw maggots in her garbage can feasting on some raw chicken "It must suck to be a fly. First you start off as a disgusting maggot and then BAM! A second chance at life only to become a huge asshole. And you eat poop. And every time you land to take a little rest...you vomit. Nobody likes you. Ever. "

Eh. Not my problem.