I hate birds.
Now, before bird watchers, bird lovers, and people who have birds as pets come after me with pitchforks and torches, let me clarify. I hate birds that are in a space I don't feel like they should be in.
For example, I work at a testing lab. And I used to file folders in a room full of filing cabinets. This room had a cement floor (no carpet), and no heating or air-conditioning vented in. Just a ceiling of pipes above my head. The problem with this room was that there was a giant hole in the wall that looked down into my lab's warehouse. The warehouse is where we have our shipping area and many times the "garage door" in our shipping area is open for part of the day. And sometimes, a bird flies in. One day I opened the door to go into the filing room and a bird left the pipe it was sitting on up by the ceiling and flew across the room. Remember that giant hole in the wall? It had flown into the warehouse, flown up into the filing room, and was hopelessly lost. I wasn't expecting to see a bird so I screamed, turned on my heel and SLAMMED the door from our offices into the filing room. I did not want that bird flying through the open door and into the office area! That little sparrow or whatever about gave me a heart attack.
Here's another example of birds in a space that I don't like. I think that birds belong in the sky, in the trees, on rooftops, and on electric wires. I do not like when birds are walking around on the ground. It seems unnatural to me. One of my quirks, I know. But if you want to make me nervous, put me in a city space with pigeons walking around with no fear of people. Geese? Ick, no. Do I get a little skiddish at birds walking around in a petting zoo area? You bet. It does not seem natural to me. Fly away, duck. Get in the water. Please don't walk behind me!
If I were ever to become a spy and were captured by the enemy, all they would have to do to torture me to give up spy secrets is throw me in a chicken coop. I'd sing like a bird. (See what I did there?)
Last week Husby was out of town. One morning I was carrying our daughter out to the car in the garage to leave for the day. Our garage is attached to our house. As I walked around the vehicle to get her into her car seat, a bird swooped down from the wall behind me and flew to the other side of the garage. Heart attack! I have several seasonal wreaths hanging up high on the garage wall and I switch them out on the front door as the seasons change. It had been sitting on one of the wreaths. You have never seen me strap my daughter into her car seat so fast. I was so scared that bird was going to fly into the vehicle. And I don't like being in a confined space with a bird! I had to go back into the house to get the rest of our bags and I turned around and the door into the house was open. I don't always get it all the way shut when going back and forth between the house and the garage. I screamed, "The door is open!" And ran as fast as I could and slammed the door behind me. The whole commotion caused my daughter to start crying in the car. I quickly gathered our bags that were sitting in the entry way and cracked the door, cautiously scanning the entire garage. There it was. Sitting on the garage door track. It was a sparrow or chickadee or something. I don't know. It was small. Which shouldn't be frightening, but small things move fast!
Most mornings I make at least two trips, sometimes three, back and forth between the car and the house. I call myself the "pack mule." I have a lot of junk to haul around. I have a bag for my daughter's day, with her food, blankie, diapers, wipes, an extra outfit, and maybe a favorite toy. But I also bring her diaper bag back and forth every day. On the days when my sister watches her, they sometimes run errands so a diaper bag is needed. Then I have my laptop in a bag. And my purse. And another bag with stuff I may need for my Mary Kay business or the administrative assistant job I do for my church. And finally, my lunch bag. Like I said, pack mule! Every bag has a place in our car, which is a routine I've perfected - placing each bag in the spot it's going to be easiest to grab when it is time for that particular bag to leave the vehicle. Some go in the back seat. Some go on the floor under my daughter's feet. And some go on the front seat.
But with the bird flying around my garage, the ultimate goal was to get into the vehicle as quickly as possible. There would be no walking around to the back door...walking around to the passenger side. So there I was, standing in the house, watching the bird through the cracked door. It was flying around. I waited until it landed on the garage door track again and made a break for it. I opened the driver's side door and tried to heave my bags into the passenger seat. But I couldn't get enough force, so I got in with the bags in my left hand. I couldn't close my door. The bags were in the way. So I heaved the bags over my body into the passenger seat. In doing so, I punched myself in the face. I slammed my car door and sat there with my heart racing. My daughter stopped crying.
I backed out of the garage and there was the bird. We have a three car garage and it was sitting on the track of the smaller garage door (the third stall). When I hit the button to put the main garage door down, it would fly around and land on a wreath up on the wall. When I hit the button again, it would fly around again. Over and over, every time I moved the garage door it flew. But it wouldn't get low enough to fly out the gigantic hole in the area it was stuck inside! Ack! Dumb bird! Come on! Just fly a little lower and fly out! It was clearly too scared to think reasonably. I sat there for a couple of minutes running the door slightly down and then back up again probably a dozen times. If any neighbors saw, I'm sure they wondered what in the world I was doing.
I finally had to give up and put the garage door down and leave. Later when I was in the office, I called Husby and told him what happened and that I punched myself in the face. He laughed. I laughed. Then I said, "That bird is still in there!" He texted his dad to go over to our house and see if he could let the bird out. My father-in-law went over and reported back, "No bird."
Oh yes, there was a bird in there somewhere. I knew it was still in there. When I got home that night I sat in the car for a good 20 seconds, scanning all areas around the ceiling. The coast looked clear, so I got my daughter out of the car as fast as possible and ran in the house. No bird in sight. That's when I was certain it was dead. But where it was, who knew.
The next morning I walked around scanning the floor and I found the dead bird. It was right under the wreaths. Even though I was looking for it and it was dead, it still scared me. I jumped and yelled to no one, "The bird!" Husby was coming home the next day and so I left it until he could dispose of it. I didn't want to even look at it. And even though it was dead, I gave it a wide birth every time I had to walk to the car.
Sorry you died, little bird. I wish you would have been smart and calm enough to fly out of the garage when the door was up so you could have gone up into the tree in the front yard where you belong! I hope your little birdie friends enjoy the seed we have in our three feeders, where I can watch them from the comfort of behind my house windows. Your birdie friends are cute when they are outside and when I am inside. Not so much when we are sharing a confined space together. Isn't it ironic that I have a graphic of flying birds on my blog page?
