He's Not Bothered In The Least

The Trouble With Birds.

Well, they have brains the size of uncracked sunflower seeds, or at least I imagine so. For the third straight day in a row the birds in the backyard have worked themselves into quite a tizzy. Chasing and dive bombing my sweet dog, they've been making a big old ruckus all around us. I don't know what my dog has done to vex their ire, but they are really ticked at him. It has something to do with babies I guess.

Just a couple of days ago hubby found two dead baby birds in the yard, and one apparently had bite marks on it. Now, we are guessing the dog did not actually climb the tree to get a tasty bird mc nugget out of the spring nests, but that doesn't mean he didn't decide to gnaw the head off of the baby bird that mistakenly fell out of one. Hypocrites! Birds have been known to throw their own offspring right out of the nest, but oh let it happen on accident and somehow their little pea brains can retain a grudge, for at least 3 days so far as I can tell.

I got up bright and early this morning, took a shower, made coffee with the sole intention of sitting on the back porch dreaming of smoking a cigarette--I'm still a humongous quitter by the way, going on 3rd week as we speak--and drinking coffee, my only vice. But no. The dog came out with me, and from then on it was squawk this, squack that, and a bunch of silly birds making a pure nuisance out of themselves, making me wish I owned a pea shooter.

The dog did not seem phased the least little bit, in fact, he pretty much ignored them and carried on marking all of his favorite spots as I sat there sipping my coffee thinking, "oh sheesh, will you silly birds at least be quiet about your dive bombing!" They really hate that dog now.

Then I thought how much my mom hates birds. Now, I actually do like birds even if I shouldn't given my history with them but, I find them quite interesting and could see myself on some sort of bird watching expedition, something my mother would never do, and would only express distaste for. I guess I can't blame her, she was attacked by one afterall. She was just a 9 year old kid when that mean old chicken attacked her. It might have been a rooster, I'm not sure now the details are dodgy. Something about her copping a squat, and a chicken tearing after her. I don't know, but chickens are vile smelly mean birds who deserve to be eaten because they do taste so good.

Of course mom never forgave the chicken, and to this day holds a personal grudge against all birds. I do remember as a child watching her cut up a chicken, she seemed to pretty happy to dip the thing in flour and fry it up. I admit she didn't look at all resentful either when she did it. Even so, she does get very nervous around birds and would prefer they go away all together.

These birds are small, they don't even really make contact, "what could they do to really hurt me?" I wondered. Well, I don't know what my mom has been complaining about, at least she is not a walking target for the darn things. Oh yes, it's a big family joke, I get pooped on all the time by stupid birds. Haha! Look at the drippings in my hair! What are the odds really? Is it just me, or have I been at the unfortunate end of the bird's wrath more times then is fair? I can recall quite clearly at least 3 times I've been hit, and I mean hit. The gooey stuff running down my forehead, and a big clump of it in my hair.

I'd just be innocently playing outside as a child and the critters would poop on me, but the worst was right after we returned from being overseas for 3 years. Even as we flew over the Pacific ocean my husband and I had one restaurant on our minds. They make THE best Mongolian Beef and Sesame Chicken we've ever had, and that includes any we tried in actual Asia. It was the first place we intended to go, and we got all prettied up and headed out. As we got out of the car, we noticed a loud flock of birds making quite a lot of noise in the huge tree outside the restaurant, and sure enough, splat! Right in my hair.

It was one of those where my husband points and laughs, and then sees my face and stops immediately and looks concerned. Our plans would not be ruined. No. "This has happened too many times!'' I declared. "I'm not going to let these stupid birds stop me!" So, we went back to the car, found some tissue, wiped the pooh out of my hair as best we could, and I mean it was some sticky clumpy stuff. I finished the job in the bathroom, and we had our dinner. I may have looked like that chick in Something About Mary, but at least we got our Mongolian Beef. My family just thinks it's so funny that we went on in and ate despite the poop, they don't realize that 3 years was a long time without good American Chinese food.

These birds are really too much. As I sit typing this, they have swooped my cat sitting in the window just trying to enjoy some morning air. Swooped a cat! Now come on. Tell me these critters are smart huh? That's just not real bright. The cat's face read, "oh yeah, come a little closer baby!"