Bird in the House

A few nights ago, Sarah reminded me of the time a bird flew into our house, and this happened before I had begun my Book of the Bittners, so I  think I must share the story now.

I don't recall exactly how the bird got into the house, but most likely the sliding glass door was left open and the bird flew in.  The poor little bird.  It had no idea it was about to become the focus of all out war. I would imagine that it's Tweeter account went well over it's monthly minutes, but then Tweeter hadn't been invented yet, but if it had been.....oh what a bill that poor little bird would have had when it escaped and lived to tell the story.

Paul, bless his heart, does not tolerate birds in our house.  He is very firm about this.  No birds, no spiders, no centipedes, no snakes.  Okay, I'm really the one firmly against snakes, but Paul takes a stand when a bird, spider, or centipede dare to venture in.  Our house is a NO FLY ZONE, no creep, or crawl zone.  Don't spin any webs, or you will be de-webbed and crushed. I'm sure if there were bylaws, it would be written in bold, black ink.  NO FLY, NO CREEP, NO CRAWL, NO WEB ZONE.

Well this hapless little tweeter flew into the no fly zone, and immediately incoming unauthorized object warnings went off in Paul's head.  He jumped into action.  We were all ordered to our stations, and we manned them with seriousness.  Not really, but that sounds better than saying we manned them in amazement, mouths wide open, and laughter bursting forth at the show developing in front of us.  Paul won't think this is funny, because birds in the house is not funny.  It's serious.  Birds carry disease, they randomly drop poop bombs, and they are not clean. 

I was instructed to bring him the necessary weapons to take out, take down, dispose of the enemy that had infiltrated the NO FLY ZONE.  I must bring a sheet, a pillowcase, and a towel, then I was to keep the front door open, without being seen by the enemy, and he, Paul would remove the enemy.  The three kids were to remain out of sight.  Yeah right, not when all the action was in the living room.  And how was I to remain out of sight when I needed to see what was happening? 

Paul would throw the sheet in the direction of the flying bird, and the bird would dip, swerve and dodge the sheet, and it's heart rate, its poor tiny heart, would race and pound, and it would crash into the wall.  No exit there.  Then an all out mighty cry from the crazy human, and a pillow case would fly at the bird, who would swoop, dive, and avoid, only to be bombarded with a flying towel, and a mighty warrior yell.

The bird was losing it's ability to keep up the diving, swooping, flight for life, but it flew on.  It was remembering it's mother telling it, as it flew from the nest....never fly three sheets to the wind, and now it understood what she mean.  STAY OUT OF THE NO FLY ZONE!

I stood by the front door, silently cheering the little bird to swoop, dive and dodge, and come my way.  I'm here, offering you freedom from the crazy, wild, leaping human who is yelling at you.  Come my way....  The kids were watching in amazement and awe, and in between Paul's yelling, leaping leaps, and flying linens, he yelled at them to go back to their rooms. 

The bird finally saw it's escape route, and flew fast and furious out the front door.  In exhaustion and relief, it flew to the nearest telephone wire, and perched there in thankfulness.  If twitter had been invented, he would have tweeted to his friends that he had survived an outright attack by a crazy, wild human, who yelled and leapt about, throwing linens.