Now that I’m 25, I figured that my decision making skills had improved. No Merry, do not put metal in the microwave, that oversized comforter will not fit in your washing machine, and please do not do squats when you have pulled something in your back and you clearly can’t sit or stand. I’m a grown up now, and I would never ignore food expiration dates (thank you egg poisoning of 2004) nor would I mix tequila with orange juice. I’ve learned to think things through and not to touch a hot stove. I only make completely rational choices.
(Insert Laughter here)
A few nights ago I am checking on my online students and suddenly I hear kitty outside meowing. To be clear, it was less of a meow and more of an endless yelling with a meow sound. This isn’t unusual, Kitty is the most vocal creature I’ve ever known. But mostly he is loud when he is inside the apartment, not out on the patio. After about 15 minutes of incessant crying, I decide to see what he is doing. I come outside onto the porch and he is looking at me from one side with wide eyes and he continues to meow at me. I thought, “Is Kitty going to jump and end it all?” So I moved towards him and he ran inside and hid under his poop igloo.
To my right is this poor, lifeless turtle dove just laying there with it’s feet pointed straight up. Oh no. Did Kitty do this? There are no marks on the bird and kitty has zero claws, so I ruled that out pretty fast. (Not to mention he was hiding and crying). It’s blue in the face so I’m pretty sure it is dead. And I thought “Oh my God, what on earth do I do with this bird?” Maybe it wasn’t dead? I grabbed a twig off the porch and poked at it. If it wasn’t dead, it was sure good at faking it. So I have a dead bird on my porch and a terrified kitty hiding inside.
I had absolutely no idea what to do with the bird and I panicked. I couldn’t leave it there to rot and decay, but what should I do with it? I decided to go get a dishtowel to wrap it up so I could carry it downstairs and put it in the bushes. But as I got back outside, I realized that would involve bringing the bird through my apartment and what if I dropped it? What if when I dropped it somehow all its guts flew out or it just started leaking? So a tender burial in the bushes was out of the question.
I’m not proud of what I did next. I picked up the bird in the dishtowel and it felt so icky and gross and light. I felt so awful for it, and then I couldn’t bear holding the thing anymore so I hurled it off my balcony. In my mind, this was so it could make it to the bushes without coming inside my apartment. I heard a thud that was awfully loud for a bird that landed on the grass. I peeped over the edge of my balcony and it wasn’t there. WHERE DID IT GO? I’m pointing the laser pointer on my key chain around looking for it and then…I see it. My pathetic toss combined with wind and gravity caused the bird to land on my neighbor’s porch. This isn’t a good surprise for anyone, but this is my neighbor that hates birds and requested I take down my bird feeder. OH MY GOD. I threw a dead bird on my bird hating neighbor’s porch.
I ran inside and shut the glass door and I told kitty the birdie was gone. He emerged from the poop igloo and looked out the window and continued to cry and cry. The next day I realized that none of the animals were in the spot where the bird was. The other birds, kitty, the squirrel all avoided (and are still avoiding) the dead bird spot. It is the evil spot.
It’s good to know I haven’t figured everything out yet because then life would just be so boring. RIP little turtle dove.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
How sad! Poor little turtle dove. Once when I was a kid a boy who was visiting us shot a dove in our yard and we were so sad for it that we had a funeral for it. It was quite exciting. We also had weddings too. I had a fun childhood.
You didn’t marry dead birds, did you? That would be a very exciting childhood!
Oh, Merry. I so needed this telling of the dead bird story — so sad and poignant… and yet, so funny because I am picturing you and Kitty in distress. I hope the weekend is kind to you both so you can recover from this trauma.
I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe! Thanks Merry!
Oh, and sorry to hear about the bird death.
Maybe this is just my cinematic imagination, but what if your neighbor put the bird on your porch in the first place, like the whiny apartment dweller’s version of a horse head? Maybe Kitty was trying to warn yout by whistling the theme to The Godfather or, possibly, a Frank Sinatra standard. I am partially serious.
Hahah, I just saw your reply. Sadly, no, we just married each other, I grew up in a family of 7 and our best friends also had 7 kids so there was no shortage of participants.
One wedding in which we have photographic evidence, I played the father of the bride and I wore a clown costume. The bride was dressed as Cinderella, the organist/priest wore a lacy tablecloth. It was fabulous.