I had work to do today – pretty, colorful work involving bright shades of blue, purple, orange, and green. Earlier this afternoon I went to visit my friend Steve. We had painting to do – oh the painting we had to do! Slowly, slooowly (my fault) over the past few months we’ve been redecorating the main level of his house, adding a gigantic mondo mural of funny swirly shapes, and walls with green and blue stripes. (It may sound hideous, but seriously, it looks awesome.) We’re this close to finishing, and thanks to our efforts today, the green stripes are complete and we’re now only one afternoon and five blue stripes away from being completely and utterly done with the painting. I’m excited, I’m thrilled, I can’t wait to move on to the stage of buying furniture with someone else’s money!
Throughout our painting endeavors, Steve has been telling me stories about a bright red cardinal that has taken up residence on the deck in his backyard. Steve likes to make up a lot of fanciful stories to keep me entertained, so when he told me that his cardinal was suicidal, I laughed and thought he was kidding. Today, however, while I was putting the second coat of paint on one of the green stripes, I heard this slight ‘kerthump!’ and Steve suddenly shouted, “Stop that!” I thought perhaps I’d done something wrong, so I asked what was up. And that’s when I noticed the bright red bird perched on the wooden railing outside.
Steve wasn’t kidding; he has a suicidal cardinal. I tried to get him to blog about this, but he said that’d be too much work, so I’m here to testify to this sad, sad tale. This maniacal bird perches on the railing several times a day and stares intently at Steve’s sliding glass door. Then suddenly, without warning, the bird takes flight and slams his poor little birdie head into the glass. After smearing bird snot on the door, he quickly returns to his perch, only to repeat this process again and again. Steve says that sometimes the bird will keep at it for up to thirty minutes at a time, just trying to bash his pretty little head in.
Although the fact that upon first witnessing this amazing feat I couldn’t help but laugh, I feel as though someone should contact David Attenborough or something. I mean, surely this can’t be normal bird behavior. Maybe good ole’ Atty could talk some sense into this poor creature before he turns himself into the Mike Tyson of the cardinal bunch.
It must be a thing with cardinals. I remember when I was a kid, we’d go visit my grandma in Mississippi all the time, and she had a crazy head-smashing cardinal as well. I slept in the room he was always assaulting the window of, too, so I was well-aquainted with it. Either it had a seriously strong skull or it somehow managed to sire similarly insane offspring, because every time we visited, I heard the thumps.
EXT. DAY – TOP OF A TREE. A BLUE JAY is perched on a branch intently staring into a house below through a large glass door. A CARDINAL lands next to him.
BLUE JAY: Hey Red.
CARDINAL: Hey Blue, what’s going on?
BLUE JAY: Ah, not much, just been watching that guy’s house.
CARDINAL: Oh yeah? How’s that coming?
BLUE JAY: Well, the guy has all this food he’s keeping in that big box over in the corner.
CARDINAL: No kidding?
BLUE JAY: No, I’m not. And he doesn’t even watch it all day, just opens it up and puts the food in and leaves!
CARDINAL: Wow. Want to go take a closer look? (Laughs.)
BLUE JAY: Yeah, yeah, that’s a good idea, but do you see the big hole in his house? The one with the shiny stuff covering it?
CARDINAL: Oh yeah, good idea, we’ll go in through there.
BLUE JAY: Wait, wait, wait. That stuff is called ‘glass’. Sure it looks pretty flimsy, but my cousin Jerry flew into some of that stuff, thinking he could get through…
CARDINAL: So what happened?
BLUE JAY: That is some strong stuff, my friend. Knocked him clean out. When he came to, he was staring at the business end of a cat.
CARDINAL: No!
BLUE JAY: Yes sir, it wasn’t a pretty sight. Jerry got away, but not without a good slashing to his tailfeathers. Poor fellow lives as a hermit in a park upstate now. It’s a shame.
CARDINAL: I’m sorry about your cousin, man.
BLUE JAY: Ah, it’s alright.
CARDINAL: So hey, if you’re wanting food, let’s head over to the park where that lady throws breadcrumbs at us.
BLUE JAY: Nah, you go ahead. I’m waiting for this guy to open the glass and I’m sneaking in. Of course, that’s only half the plan, I’ll have to wait for him to open the box of food, but once he does, his hoard is as good as MINE! (MANIACAL LAUGHTER.)
CARDINAL: That could take forever! He may never come out!
BLUE JAY: Well what do you suggest I do?
CARDINAL: Look, you said Jerry couldn’t break the glass? I hate to say it, but you Blue Jay’s have weak beaks.
BLUE JAY: I suppose you could do better?
CARDINAL: You bet I can.
BLUE JAY: Ok. I’ll bet you my nest that you can’t break that glass.
CARDINAL: Oh please, you’re on.
BLUE JAY: Good luck sucker.
CARDINAL: You better go move your stuff out of my nest, loser.
BLUE JAY: Yeah I’ll get right on that.
EXT. – DAY. The CARDINAL spends his days attempting to break the glass of the door forever after. The futility of his task never occurs to him, but still he persists.
END.
I recommend a two pronged approach, as the bird is either stupid or suicidal. First, get some prozac. If you can’t get that, Paxil will do. Effexor might do in a pinch. Divide the bird’s weight by your weight, multiply by 2 for a stronger dose (since you’ll just say you’re feeling blue, and the bird is full on suicidal). Put this adjusted dose in with some seeds each day for the Cardinal. Second, put some decals or something up on your glass door. Maybe you could find something cat-like or cat-u-resque. Catty? Je-ne-sais-cat? Cattish?
I am thinking about just taping packing bubbles to the window pane that the crazed bird goes for. Boing flap flap flap boing. This has the advantage of doing less damage to the bird and leaving less bird juice on the door.
Erik – That was very well written! However for a bird to get food from my house it would have to be able to pick the lock to the backdoor, slide open the screen door, open the freezer, rip a whole in a box of Barbeque Hotpockets and unwrap the plastic wrap, then open the microwave, put the hotpocket in and microwave it on high for 1:30 minutes. Then it would have to let it cool for 2 minutes (filling may be hot), open the microwave again, and finally eat. Heck I can barely do all that most days.
I know that I can certainly attest to the difficulties of correctly cooking a Hot Pocket. It could have something to do with fact that the microwave I used in college had less thermal potential than an Easy-Bake oven, but who can know for sure? 🙂
Maybe he is just desperate for attention.