Sunday, June 17, 2007

AVIAN INVADERS!

It was a couple of weeks ago, as we were packing our bags for CancĂșn, that She Who Must Be Obeyed came into the house in a mild state of agitation. She had been getting ready to water the plants on the deck, it seems, when she saw a bird sitting on the threshold of the door.

Have I told you that SWMBO does not like birds? In fact, she loathes them. It’s a trait she inherited from her mother, who has a deadly dislike of avian critters of any kind. Hell, I’m surprised that the two of ’em eat chicken. I guess it’s the beak and feathers that bugs the crap out of ’em.

One time, we had to have our dryer outlet vent cleaned out after a bird had built a nest in there. The mama bird had cooked to death in the hot dryer exhaust, and the guy who augered out the vent simply dropped the dead bird’s corpse into the laundry room waste can. The Missus nearly crapped a peach pit when she saw it.

And now, there was a bird (Horrors!) perched, as it were, right outside the door.

The problem: How to get the watering can outside without letting the bird in the house.

The solution: Ask Elisson to do it.

The result: As soon as I opened the door, the bird waltzed right in.

Now we had a bird in the house, and SWMBO was not going to rest until it had been removed. And neither would I, for I heard this pronunciamento thundering down from upstairs, where SWMBO had fled: “You’re not going to bed until that thing is out of the house!”

Avian Invader
Our little Avian Invader.

It was a pitiful little thing. I suspect it was a fledgeling that had recently left the nest and that could fly only with great effort. Luckily for me, it never left the kitchen -had it gotten into the high-ceilinged foyer, catching it would have required a professional. But after flitting back and forth across the room a few times, it was exhausted. While it was hanging on to our plantation shutters for dear life, I was able to slip a mesh bag over it. You know: the kind wimmen use to wash their brassieres Delicate Underthings in.

You can be sure SWMBO would boil that bag before putting one of her Delicate Underthings in it again. Bird cooties! Eww! But she was relieved that I had caught it without hurting it. She may not like Real Live Birds, but her dislike stops short of wishing them harm.

I took it outside and gently released it from its Mesh Prison. Next morning, I was half-prepared to find a pathetic little bird-corpse on the deck, but no. Perhaps the little guy was able to recover his strength and fly off to...wherever it is that these guys fly off to in the spring. Cleveland?

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