Last week at preschool R made a homemade version of the
popular Chia Pet planter out of an old pair of panty hose, some dirt, and grass
seed. He decorated it with googly craft eyes and red pipe cleaners for
antennae. Voila, caterpillar! While this project was very cute and inventive,
it also left an inch of dirt in the bottom of his backpack and resulted in a
film of potting soil mixed with grass seed on our kitchen table. Not one to
squelch creative genius, I dutifully found an old plastic tray, watered the
panty hose and set it on the plant stand to sprout.
The Super Bowl was just finishing, and I was getting the
house in order for the upcoming week. I opened the back patio door to try and
shake some of the dirt out of R’s backpack. My husband was tucking him in, as
we had let him stay up to see the end of the game. As I turned to come back
into the house, I felt a WHOOSH and flutter near my hair and a bird flew past
me into the dining room.
At this point in the story, I feel obligated to point out
that while I love animals, I really love them more when they stay outside of my
house. I should also reveal that I have a phobia of birds, one that stems from
an unfortunate incident when I was seven involving a neighbor girl and her pet
parakeet. She insisted on showing me how she could give him a “drink” of water,
but instead succeeded in drowning him. (Apparently, you can lead a parakeet to
water, but you can’t make him drink.)
So anyway, I stood there in the doorway in shock because the
bird, now panicked himself, was doing circles around the ceiling. I quickly
sprang into action, and by action, I mean that I grabbed an old sheet that the
kids had been using to make tents and held it over the doorway separating the
kitchen from the living room. I also shouted for my husband. Confused, he
emerged from R’s room and asked me what I was doing. Standing on my tippy toes,
holding sheet to doorway, I not so calmly explained the predicament and my
desire to keep the bird confined to the kitchen rather than let it have free-range
of the house. “What would I like for him to do?” he asked.
When I got married, I saw pest and rodent removal as a huge
perk in this union. (Mice terrify me almost as much as birds, due to an even
more unfortunate choice of apartment rentals following college. And aren’t
birds really just rodents with wings?) Never again would I have to deal with
beady-eyed, pointy-snouted creatures that get stuck in glue traps or have the
gall to poke their heads out from beneath random pieces of furniture. So of
course, I expected my husband to take care of this situation (after all, I
signed the puke clause in this contract.) He bravely grabbed the kitchen broom
and marched toward his destiny.
Twenty minutes later, we were both exhausted and frustrated,
but the bird actually looked like he might be settling in for the night. He
chose three favorite landing spots throughout the room and took flight each time
he was prodded with the broom, landing in a virtual Bermuda Triangle. Try as we
might, we couldn’t get him to head toward the exit. All the while, our
four-year-old gleefully watched from a crack in his bedroom door, despite being told to
shut said door and get back in bed. (I’m guessing he may have picked up a few
choice words and phrases to share on the preschool playground this week.)
We didn’t want to hurt the bird (I’m a pacifist), but we
were getting desperate. J left the room and returned with a green and yellow
insect net that came with R’s bug catching kit. I hid behind the sheet, not
wanting to witness whatever might come next. I heard a THWACK and a cheer,
which was followed by a groan. The bird had briefly flown outside, only to turn
around and resume the game he was playing with the stupid humans. Finally, we
opened the door leading to the garage, and he found his way out.
We were left to survey the carnage. There were feathers and
bird poop everywhere. I spent the next hour cleaning and sanitizing the
counters and floor. When I went out to the garage to shut the door before I
went to bed, the bird was sitting on top of the folding door, watching me with
his smug, beady little eyes.
I see a trip to the screen door department at Home Depot in
our very near future.
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