Mother Thinks The Birds Are After Her
Despite my almost encyclopedic knowledge of Britney Spears* it comes as a shock to tell you, Pranksters, that my brain banks hold no information about birds. I take that back. This is what I know about birds:
They make noise.
Sometimes other animals eat them.
Orange cupcakes are the world’s most perfect food.
It is there that my knowledge of birds begins and ends.
So it came as a shock to me that one of my neighbors at the FBI Surveillance Van came up to me as I was devising a proper scheme to break the lock on the canoes sitting by the garbage cans and ascertaining how, exactly one might rob a liquor store and/or pawn shop while on a canoe.
Her: “The birds are attacking.”
Me: “AAAAH! Plausible deniability! I’ve! I didn’t rob anything yet! I PLEAD THE FIFTH!”
Her: (goggles at the crazy lady and takes several steps back)
Me: “uh, Ha-ha-ha. I meant, WHAT about birds?”
Her: “They’re attacking. I got hit yesterday.”
Me: (goggles, mouth open and catching river bugs)
Me: “But… but… birds are so cute and fluffy and now I want an Orange Cuppy-Cake.”
Her: “Every year, the complex sends out a warning when the birds begin to attack.”
Me: (stunned into blessed silence for once in my life)
Her: “Yeah. Sometimes a hat works. I used an umbrella last year.”
Me: (still sitting there with my mouth open)
Me: “….wow.”
Her: “So be careful! And get a hat!”
Me: “Thanks for the warning!”
She walked away, eying the trees suspiciously.
I dismissed her as being “crazy,” (which, as someone who’d been plotting to rob a liquor store using a canoe, is not exactly appropriate) and went about my day.
The following afternoon, I stepped outside, my mind full of such things as “I wonder if Bill Gates knows my orthodontist” and “do bands really set out to become “light rock” or is that just one of those unfortunate labels that gets stuck on bands who happen to use a rocking sax?” when, from out of nowhere, there was a loud buzzing noise and suddenly, my hair, which had been happily attached to my head, was now being pulled. Hard.
Whipping around, I noticed that there was a bird there, his mouth shaped into a sadistic smile. I whipped him the middle finger before yelping like a little bitch, figuring that flipping a bird the bird would have some sort of effect.
It did not.
Before the week was out, I’d been dive-bombed more times than my fingers could count and I’d begun to develop a nice bald spot where my formerly hair had once been. I looked like the before picture in one of those baldness infomercials.
Even worse than female baldness was the fact that I’d turned into this raving lunatic every time I ventured outside. Scanning the sky for Attack Birds I tripped on my own feet so many times that my knees turned black and blue and my palms had crisscrossed scars. Furtively, I’d scan the sky, flipping off rogue birds intent upon attacking my new bald spot when I realized that my neighbors were probably craning their necks to examine me for the marks left by the straight jacket.
I had to develop a new strategy.
I considered umbrellas, but decided that walking around with an umbrella during a perfect summer day would only further my neighbors conviction that I belonged not in the FBI Surveillance Van, but in yee old Funny Farm.
I was left with one option. One kicky option.
Hats.
Kicky motherfucking hats.
And you know what, Pranksters? It WORKED. So what if I look like a tool in cat-hair encrusted sweatpants, a ripped tank top and a fedora? So what if I wore a poker visor out in public?
AT LEAST I WASN’T GETTING BALDER.
Soon, Pranksters, I’ll be the AFTER picture in that infomercial.
It’s only a shame Billy Fucking Mays won’t be there to jubilantly hawk my new hair.
*my parents are SO proud.
I fucking hate birds.
They are TOTAL assholes.
What about chickens?
They’re birds, right?
They taste good… especially barbequed.
Not sure about their assholes though.
Wow. Remind me NOT to visit during psycho bird season!
Whatever. You’re like Little House on the Prairie meets Martha Stewart. I’m sure you have better coping techniques than me 🙂
Wow. Remind me NOT to visit during psycho bird season!
I don’t trust anything with eyes on the far side of it’s head. I’m looking at you too, fish..
Fish are fucking bullshit.
OhMan…
The picture that congered up.
A little fish, flopping around in the field…. um… never-mind. I’m going to go rinse my brain out with clorox now.
Birds are mean mother effers. Which is where the idea for Angry Birds came in.
You would think they would understand though when someone flips them the bird.
That’s what *I* thought!
I feel you on this – I really do. I’ve been assaulted by pigeons and geese. They’re evil little bastards. It’s like Larry David said “You know…if I were deaf and could never hear the birds chirping again…it wouldn’t be so bad.”
Bwahahaha. I’m SO glad I’m not the only one who’s been there! I’m still in shock.
What kind of birds attack?! I’ve never heard of this happening before….
Red-wing blackbirds. They’re gorgeous. And assholes.
Your attack birds freak me out. I have never heard of this craziness before.
ME EITHER. Isn’t it fucked?
I have *literally* never heard of this happening. I’m amazed… and so glad I don’t live there.
You can totally come visit! I’ll let you borrow a hat.
Use the umbrella as a bat, and grand slam those dam birds!
God, I fucking love you.
I love you, too! <3
I used to work in an office building that was surrounded by trees that produced berries each spring. Every year, flocks of intoxicated birds … drunk from consuming the fermenting berries … would slam into the windows of my office. After a while I was able to ignore the repeated bangs against the glass. Guests in my office, however, were amazed by the display. “Oh, that?” I’d say, “Those are just drunk birds. They do this for a couple weeks every spring.” Stupid drunk birds.
Fun post!
OMFG. Please tell me you have pictures or video of drunk ass birds.
Dude, I missed you!
So do any of the neighbors in the FBI Surveillance Van know why this happens?
I’ve seen mockingbirds dive bomb cats and dogs and an occasional person who walks too close to their nest, but never heard of the red-wing blackbirds doing this. This is too funny. I’m guessing they are nesting there, since you live close to the water. Maybe they think your hair makes nice nesting material… or probably they are just defending their babies. I guess they think you want to steal them. 🙂 In any case, I’m sure you’re rocking the hat. Start a new trend… hats are fun.
Prehistoric bastards… I suggest the following product. 🙂
http://www.windycitynovelties.com/240027p/umbrella-hat.html?gclid=CPCQzP38rLgCFa9_QgodmFsAWg
Auntie, I don’t know if you’ll see this, but I told you on the Twitter that i would post a message here because it won’t fit on the Twitter. I don’t know how to do that lengthy Twitter thing.
Anyhow, you were discussing “The best part of waking up is Folger’s in your cup.” A poster on the Ex-Mormon board I frequent [but seldom if ever actually post there because some of the regulars are hostile to newcomers no matter how hard one tries to be polite and unassumaing and to follow the convention of the message board] posted in interesting story. It ended up being rated number two in a poll related to the funniest story even posted there. #1 was a story abiut a guy who gave the Mormon equivalent to a sermon in a Mormon church [Mormons call them “talks”] unknowlingly with a Kotex stuck to the top of his toupee, which his bratty two-year-old had just removed from a diaper bag, upeeled from the covering of the sticky strip, and stuck on top of his father’s head right before he, the father, approached the pulpit. The father thought his son was just patting him on the head. That, too, is a great story, and I can find a link for it if you’re ever intereted. (My mom’s best friend was the author.)
Back to the Folger’s story, as you probably know well, drinking of coffee is forbidden by the LDS Church’s Word of Wisdom, which is a scripture in their Doctirne and Covenants. In this particular case, the scripture was a revelation goven directly from God to joseph Smith, and mentions hot drinks, strong drinks, and tobacco, as not being for the bellyor body, and says that meat should be eaten sparingly and that the mainstay of one’s diet should be wheat and the fruit and vegetables of the season. Joseph and the rest of the braintrust interpreted “strong drinks” to mean anything with alcohol, “hot drinks” to mean anything with caffeine, including cold drinks with caffeine but not hot chocolate [which contains caffeine; go figure] , and pretty much ignored the part about eating meat sparingly and eating the fruits and veggies of the season.
The mother of the story’s author found after her fifteen-bazillionth kid was born that she simply could not cope with the rigors of getting her husband off to work, getting fourteen-bazillion children to off to school, and dealing with the remaining bazillion children at home each morning without chemical assistance. Getting everyone to churhc on time on Sunday was even less feasible Apparently none of the parasites that emerged from the mother’s nether regions (this proper Mormon lady would probably never utter the word “crotch”) was on Ritalin or Adderall, which is, in and of itself, an anomaly among Mormons and their numerous offspring, so she couldn’t raid their supply of prescription stimulants.
The rule was that one could not ingest, as in eat or drink the stuff, right? So the lady got the brilliant idea that it would be permissiable to absorb coffee rectally, i.e. via an enema. From that point to this very day, when she has only two children, both in their latter years of high school, still at home, each morning she brews a fresh batch of Folgers, chills it to the point that she won’t scald her colon, and gives herself a coffee enema.
The original Folger’s jingle,, as you remember, was, “The best part of waking up is Folger’s in your cup.” The poor exhausted old hag’s fifteen bazillion children sing it a bit differently when their mother is out of hearing range. they sing, “The best part of waking up is folger’s up your butt.”