Acorns From An Okie

Allen February 16th, 2007

My wife, Missy, called me at work the other day. She was rather upset — she found a dead bird in the master bathroom floor. Apparently one of the dogs had found it outside and brought it in. I was at work and couldn’t easily leave. I told her to get a plastic bag, avert her eyes and pick it up and put it in the trash.

“There is no way I’m going to pick up a dead bird. I’ve locked the dogs and cats out of the bathroom and you can deal with it when you get home.”

“Oh, honey. I really don’t want some bird decomposing on our bathroom carpet. It’ll be easy. Just do it real quick and it will be over with.”

Dead silence on the other end of the line told me this was not going to be real quick and it was not going to be over with.

I sighed, “OK. I’ll pick it up when I get home. I just hope this isn’t some bird that died from the bird flu. Perhaps we need to take it to the wildlife service just to be sure.”

So the rest of the day passed rather uneventfully. In fact, I had forgotten about the bird until I pulled into the driveway and found the car missing. After letting the dogs out of the cage, I got a plastic bag from the pantry and headed in to the bathroom. The cats were quite interested in following me — small wonder.

I slipped in to the bathroom and, sure enough, there was the dead bird with its legs in the air. I spotted a gold band on one of the legs and thought, “Oh dear. This is some sort of bird that has been banded and is part of some scientific study. Wait a minute…”

“That’s a gold band — not silver. And it isn’t on its leg. It’s on its butt.”

I stooped down, picked up the bird and read the band — Made in China.

After I wiped the tears from my eyes, I had an idea. I moved the bird from our bathroom to our entryway and waited for my wife, Missy, and my daughter, Amy, to come home.

After about 20 minutes, the dogs started barking wildly and up the sidewalk came Missy and Amy. My wife called out, “Did you pick up the bird.”

“Yes, I did. But I think its important that you be able to deal with this. I’ve brought it out here for you to pick up,” I said as I pointed to the dead bird at my feet.

Dual shrieks greeted this suggestion and both women turned and started walking back down the sidewalk.

I started laughing and picked up the dead bird with my bare hand. Shrieeek! “It’s really OK. It won’t hurt you,” I called out.

Two shivers and a pleading request to just throw it away!

“No, really. It won’t hurt you!” Another thought lodged in my sick brain. “It’s really a nice bird. It’s kind of cute. I think it really wants to be our friend.” And with that, I turned the dead bird to face me and kissed it full on the lips — er, beak.

Shriiiieeeeek!

I thought I had freaked them out before, but now they were really going. By now, both women were at the end of the sidewalk and telling me to (1) throw the bird away, (2) wash my lips, (3) wash my hands and (4) wash my lips again.

I walked outside and pleaded with them to look at the pretty bird. I think they would like it. Amy retreated back to the car and Missy fetched up around the side of the house. I kissed the dead bird two or three more times to convince them that it wasn’t going to harm them, but they wouldn’t listen to me.

I finally got my daughter, Amy, to examine the “band” on the bird’s butt and her cries of distress turned to peals of laughter. I asked her, “Don’t you think the bird is cute?”

“Yes, it’s very nice.”

“Wouldn’t you like to kiss it?” as I held it up for her to kiss.

Kiss, kiss.

By now, Missy was sufficiently suspicious to examine the dead bird.

We were all in agreement that one of the cats had probably pounced on it and had found it harder to kill than it had previously suspected.

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