Let me start by saying - I love animals, especially looking at them! I, myself, have 2 dogs and a cat - but I’ve had probably around 5 or 6 dogs and around 20 different cats since 1980, when I moved from my parents’ house.
But, me and birds are not the best of friends! It probably started as a little girl, living on the beach, feeding the seagulls with my father. Seagulls are NOT shy about eating - if you throw out a handful of bread, they waste no time snatching the pieces up - and you better have let go of all in your hands! Then, when you run, they WILL chase you! Feeding the ducks in the little ponds in the neighborhood wasn’t as traumatic. Nevertheless, I always kept my distance.
As I got older, I still had a couple of negative confrontations with birds. Once, I had just gotten a gorgeous new black shorts suit. I thought I looked so cute in it! I wore it to the city boat marina for a musical event. I hadn’t been there 5 minutes, when “PLOP” a giant pile of bird poop landed slap-dab down the front of my gorgeous black suit! Grrrrr!
Another time, I was taking a shower and heard this weird noise in my bedroom. Kinda scared, I wrapped up and ventured out - my room looked like someone had slit open a feather pillow and shook it all over my room! Just like in the cartoons! My cat, BooBoo, had caught a bird and so thoughtfully brought into my room to kill it and give it to me as a present! (Gee whiz, BooBoo, haven’t you ever heard of candy or flowers!?)
Woodpeckers have GOT to be the worst! A gigantic one with a huge, bright red head, chose my house from which to woo his chosen “honey” - he sat on the corner of my house, right by my cotton-pickin’ bedroom window and pecked his stupid little heart out! All day! This went on for about of week, and after feeling like I was having an MRI done, I got sick of him! I went to Wal-Mart and bought a BB gun! (Knowing damn good and well I had no idea what I was doing!)
Naturally, at first, I couldn’t find the SOB! But, oh boy, when I did! I shot at the little sucker a couple of times and, of course I missed, but I never heard from his ass again! (I returned the BB gun to the store!)
Now the crème-de-la-crème!
One afternoon, Bree (my goddaughter) and I (she was around 3 or 4 at the time) were going somewhere. When I opened the front door to go, there was this HUGE black duck there! I mean, it was the hugest duck I had ever seen! It had to be some kind of mutant!
It charged at me and I screamed “bloody murder” and ran back in the house. I tried waiting a while, but every time I opened the door to check, it would charge, squawking, at me! I was a hostage in my own house!
So, after about an hour of that, I called the city animal control - they wouldn't come out - I called every animal-concerned organization, including BEAKS - no one would help!
I even called the police non-emergency line and told them I was being held hostage by an enormous killer duck - they thought it was hilarious! Needless to say, they wouldn't help either.
I didn’t know what to do! Finally, I decided to open the door and holler obscenities and threats at the duck (like he knew what I meant - but, I could tell by the look on his face that he HAD been called an SOB before!) I did this 20 or so times for at least an hour, taking great care that Bree didn’t hear my trashy mouth or become traumatized by the whole incident, and finally it left. (Probably didn’t realize I was insane!)
Although she doesn’t really remember, she has heard me tell the story. So, every once in a while, just to mess with me, Bree likes to scare me by sneaking up and "squawking" at me and running away laughing her head off!
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