July 14, 2006

Birds don’t like me

What I was 5 years old, one of our neighbors had a pet bird. If memory serves me correct, I think it was a robin. I know that sounds weird, but I’m pretty sure that’s right. They would let it fly around the neighborhood and for some reason, it was attracted to me. I distinctly remember walking out the door of my house, excited with the anticipation of walking to the playground, when my joyful excursion was rudely interrupted by this bird that flapped around my head and continued to stalk me as I ran around the yard terrified. I remember thinking of dropping to the ground and covering my head, but I was so afraid it was going to land on me and peck me. It was awful. I think my Mom eventually chased the bird away and I eventually calmed down. That was the first of many ill encounters with a bird.

The second was at a campground and luckily enough, I was not the recipient of the abuse this time. I was camping with my aunt and uncle and my aunt was just about to take a bite of her egg sandwich. Her mouth was literally a centimeter away from touching the bread when a bird decided that it looked like a mighty fine place to take a dump. My aunt screamed and threw the sandwich and I collapsed in a fit of giggles. It was hysterical and I was just glad that the bird had chosen her sandwich and not my hot dog. This is the same aunt that passed away when I was a teenager, and to this day I continue to tell my mom that I truly believe she sits in heaven and sends the birds to get me. The robin incident was isolated, but things have only gotten worse since she has passed. . .

The first truly horrifying incident happened at the beach. I’m sure you can probably tell where I’m going with this right? If you can’t, I’ll give you a little hint: if you’re one of THOSE people who feeds the seagulls when there are innocent beach-goers hanging out nearby. . . I don’t like you very much at all. Here’s why. I was vacationing with my friend and her family. We were working on our tans (Wait, let me reminisce for a moment. Ahhh, the days before I dipped myself in a vat of SPF 50. . . the days before warnings from dermatologists. . . back when I would actually have a tan in the summer as opposed to the albino type thing I’ve got going on now. O.k. I’m done). Some boys who were our age were hanging out nearby. They started a friendly flirtation by throwing ice chips as us. One would land on my stomach and make me sit bolt upright. They thought it was hysterical. I would chuck the ice cube back at them (usually aiming to take out an eye or something), and the game would continue. This went on for a while and then it wasn’t so funny anymore. I was getting annoyed. I was just on the cusp of melting into a great beach nap when I was doused by what felt like ice cubes along with half the drink they came from. I sat straight up and started screaming at the guys. "That was SO rude," I yelled. They acted like they didn’t know what I was talking about and then slowly they saw what had happened and started laughing and pointing at me. I looked down. There was green bird poop on my shoulder, in my armpit, on my bikini, running down my side, on my stomach. . . it was everywhere. Whatever bird took aim at me at one seriously irritable bowel.

That’s when the screaming started. It took hold of me and it sounded as if it was coming from somewhere else. Everyone on the beach within a two block radius heard me screaming, and saw me sprinting to the ocean water while wilding shaking my arms. The repulsion was forcing a guttural scream and convulsions that seemed to be trying to shake off the poop. I threw myself in the ocean and let wave after wave wash over me. When I felt like I was cleaned off enough, I stomped back to the hotel room past the hysterical boys, and took a scalding hot shower. I may have scrubbed with bleach. I put on a new swimsuit and went back out, but this time it was straight under the umbrella for me.

Years later, in college, my husband (then boyfriend) and I went to the beach. We went to Ocean City MD and if you’ve ever been there you know what the bottom end of the boardwalk is like. It’s packed with people who are eating food, which means there are seapoopers a.k.a. seagulls everywhere. We were walking along the boardwalk and Mr. BBM was trying to hold my hand, but like a crazy person, I kept letting go and darting in one direction or another trying to keep the air space above me free from possible attacks. Mr. BBM was laughing at me. "There are all these people on the boardwalk," he said. "You look like a lunatic, jumping around like that."

I know that I did, but I couldn’t help it. I did not want to be used as a public bird potty again. Mr. BBM finally grabbed my hand and spoke softly to me trying to calm me down. He told me to walk with him and relax. Not 10 seconds after I started walking like a normal person, I took a step and felt the onslaught.

I abruptly stopped, turned and glared at Mr. BBM. "SEE! I TOLD YOU!" I screamed at him. Whitish-greenish-yellowish bird poop covered the arm of my sweater, and my entire left leg. It even hit my shoe. Mr. BBM burst into laughter as I started my convulsive sprint to the bathroom. If you’ve ever been to O.C. Md. you know what the bathrooms at the main part of the boardwalk are like. In a word: crowded. There was a line about 20 women long. I cut them all and ran to the sink. One woman had the nerve to make a comment loud enough for me to hear. I turned on my heel and gave her the look of death. "I DON’T NEED a restroom," I said, "I just need the SINK. You think that’s o.k. with you, HUH?" I demanded as I thrust my arm and leg out in her direction. She backed off and I got busy stomping on the pedal that makes the sink spray.

Just imagine trying to stomp on the pedal with your right foot, while trying to lift your other leg into the sink to wash it off, ditto for your foot. There were no paper towels in the bathrooms, only air dryers. So, when I had sufficiently soaked myself top to bottom and doused my sweater with water as well, I finally emerged from the bathroom. Mr. BBM was still laughing, but he knew better than to mess with me. "Let’s go miniature golfing," he suggested, "away from the boardwalk," he added so that I wouldn’t refuse. He gave me his sweatshirt to wear and we went golfing without incident.

It was later that evening and we didn’t feel like heading back to our room yet. "Let’s walk the boardwalk," he suggested. "ABSOLUTELY NOT!" I said. He grabbed my hand and we walked along the road several blocks to get away from the crowded area of the boardwalk. He assured me there would be less birds.

There were less birds, but that didn’t mean that I was going to be willing to just walk out in the open. I went back to my "safe place" and spent my time looking to the sky, darting from one storefront awning to the next, trying to avoid the birds like the plague. Mr. BBM was laughing at me, but he was starting to get a little annoyed. In his defense, I did probably look a little crazy. So, just like before, he grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the stores (Funny, he still does this today, but for different reasons. . . ) out towards the edge of the boardwalk by the beach. "See, this isn’t so bad," he said. We walked for a whole 20 seconds before, SPLAT!!! A seagull nailed me right on the chest. If I had leaned my head a fraction of an inch forward, it would have been all over my face.

I stomped and screamed. I threw an absolute fit as Mr. BBM tried to compose himself. He didn’t try that hard. He then had to help me remove the sweatshirt because the normal way of removal would be to cross your arms and grab the bottom band as you lift up and over your head. But, oh NO, that could not happen, because if I had pulled the sweatshirt off like so, I would have had bird poop up my nose. He helped me take the sweatshirt off and then I stomped my way back to the car demanding to go to the hotel room. We haven’t been back to Ocean City since.

It didn’t matter if I was close to a beach or not though. During my junior year in college, I lived in an apartment with four other people. My one roommate had a cockatiel named Sparky. He would occasionally let him out of his cage and when he was out, he would always try to locate MY shoulder. He didn’t want to see Mr. BBM who actually liked him and he had no interest in the fingers that would entice him to leave my shoulder. In fact, when someone would try to remove him from my shoulder, he would walk backwards down my back and make a pecking motion. I would usually have to go grab a beer after one of these experiences.

Apparently Sparky wanted to make more of an impression than just with these perch-in’s on my shoulder every once in a while. I came home after a long day of classes and work and took a bath. Upon exiting, I grabbed my towel and discovered that Sparky had left me a present. My roommate informed me that he liked to sit on top of the bathroom door and guess where my towel was hanging? I kept my bathroom door closed after that, and I’m pretty sure I threw away the towel.

A few years later, Mr. BBM and I bought our first house and had our first baby. I made a wreath and put it on the front door, where a family of mockingbirds decided to take up residence. Open the door. . . get squawked at. Try to take a stroll through your front yard. . . attack of the birds as they would swoop at my head and yell things in my ear about pecking out my babies eyes. (O.k., this may be a slight exaggeration. They actually whispered.) My husband finally got rid of the nest that they had built in our wreath. Besides the threats to do bodily harm, their frequent comings and goings were making a lot of noise at our door and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t making a lot of noise directed at Mr. BBM begging him to please find the birds a realtor and get them to move somewhere else.

Fast forward to last summer. We took Big I to the zoo and spent some time in the Children’s Petting Zoo area. Big I was feeding the ducks when we came under attack. There were about 4000 pigeons perched in the trees above and apparently they all decided to let loose at once. I went to open my purse to get out more money to buy the ducks some more food, and lo and behold, there was green poop on my pink back-pack purse. As I sat my purse down on top of the stroller to clean it off, I noticed another splash of nastiness on the stroller. The ducks. . . were left high and dry as I high-tailed it out of the area. Apparently, the desire to poop on me doesn’t just come from seagulls.

The bird poop is disgusting, sure. But, in general I am not a fan of birds. I hear their wings flapping and the sound startles me. I swear they purposely swoop at my head no matter where I am. My phobia of birds is so bad that I think it may even top my phobia of bugs, which is why this is so amazing to me:

See that, a bird. ON HER HAND. My offspring with a lorikeet ON. HER. HAND. A WILD lorikeet. In case you were wondering, Mr. BBM took this picture. I was waiting outside the fenced in area with Lil C who was "talking" to the pigeons, which made them flap their wings, which made me jump and startle, which made Lil C laugh and scream even more, which made them flap their wings more. . .

You get the idea.

And just for the record little daughters of mine, "NO, you may NOT have a pet BIRD!"