The Omen

I'm not proud of this hopefully little-known fact, but...I am terrified of birds. Actually, pretty much anything that flaps and flutters and squawks and can peck my eyes out. Their beaks, their claws, their beady little eyes - I'm breaking out in a sweat just thinking about it. I blame this affliction on a horrible, awful bird my little sister had named Veronica (after the Archie comics) when we were kids. I swear, that thing knew I didn't like it, and I think over time it became psycho because my sister's bedroom at the time had no windows. I am convinced that while we were at school, that thing would sit in the dark and plot all of the evil ways it would torture us when we got home. Veronica was not a nice bird - at all. It was the devil incarnate, and I was so happy to see it gone.

There was also one time when my cousin Alex and I were driving through Wyoming after having been in Montana to see our grandpa right before he died and we stopped at Wendy's to eat. We sat on the tailgate of the truck and Alex started throwing french fries out to these seagulls (because when you think Wyoming, of course you think seagulls) that were literally dive-bombing our heads. That is also high on my list of bird trauma, especially since seagulls are just cold-blooded scavengers - also from Hades.

Well now. There is a new bird in my life. A bird I prefer to call Damien, as in The Spawn of Satan, like in the movie The Omen. This bird is not a pet, but merely a menace to my already fragile emotional sensibilities when it comes to winged creatures (Oh, God, the miller moths...). It's Spring, flowers are blooming, trees are sprouting, and I understand that birds have to eventually come back from whatever warm climates they relocate to during winter (the Seventh Circle of Hell is pretty warm, isn't it?). So I fully expect them to be around, and as long as they stay within restraining order distance from me, I can accept their presence and will generally declare a truce. Sometimes their little chirps are even sort of sweet, and I do enjoy watching hummingbirds flip about, as long as I am safely enclosed in some sort of tightly-sealed building. But Damien...

It started three days ago. I was getting ready for work, and I kept hearing this tap. It would go back and forth from soft to a little heavier sounding, as if some kids were throwing different sizes of rocks at our house. After hearing this for a while, I put down my mascara and went around the house to inspect whatever this crazy sound might be. As I passed by the three windows in our kitchen, I noticed a bird sitting on the aspen tree branches in our front yard. Hi bird. I'm inside, so you don't bug me. Enjoy your tree. Almost immediately, the bird - Damien - took off from the tree and proceeded to fly straight into the kitchen window, falling with a thud to the ledge inches below. Holy. Lord. Before I could even process what was happening, the bird staggered to its knives-for-feet and flew back into the tree, and started the Kamikaze window-crashing process all over again. It did it about five times with me standing there in shock and horror until I finally got my wits about me and decided that THIS IS EFFING CREEPING ME OUT! I waited until Damien repositioned himself in the tree again and proceeded to bang furiously on the window with a metal BBQ fork, causing Damien to flutter away into the neighbor's yard. He came back a second time that morning, and I had to use the BBQ fork to again show Damien WHAT'S UP. The whole thing just left me with the heebie jeebies until I finally got out of the house. Yesterday morning, Damien came back. A little more forceful, a little more determined, a lot more creepy. I had to break out the big guns and use the metal BBQ spatula to get him to go away, as he was not about to be scared off by a mere fork.

This morning I started to wake up before my alarm went off, which is almost unheard of for me. Stretching and yawning, I realized that it was the ominous presence of Damien, again slamming into the kitchen window, that rousted me from my slumber, rather than the strains of some cheeseball Michael Bolton song coming from my radio alarm clock. Now, normally I would not choose Michael Bolton over anything, but over the sound of the devil's underling trying to break into my house?? Please, bring on the Bolton! The fact that I am now carrying a wee Irish lad or lass, thus inducing a little bit of Pregnancy Hysteria, is not helping matters, as I am only half-joking when I reveal that there is a small possibility that Damien is coming for me and my child. Side note: maybe I should stop watching horror movies for the next seven/eightish months. After lying in bed for what seemed like days, trying to figure out what to do, I finally decided to tiptoe into the kitchen, BBQ spatula in hand, and discreetly close the shades to the window in hopes that maybe that damn bird is just seeing its reflection and thinks that it's fluttering into the wings of some birdy love. Who knows, who cares?? I just want the damn thing to go away! The worst part of it all is that Sean goes to work so early that he can't be there to validate the horrors I tell him from these morning bird incidents. I know he believes me, but being the rational sort that he is and not viewing birds as six-ounce death dealers, he doesn't seem to have the same reaction that I do. He has to go to work tomorrow, too, thereby leaving me alone and defenseless again should Satan's Spawn come calling. I'm half tempted to just go to work with him in order to escape this Hitchcockian nightmare I have found myself in the middle of.

The good news is, I've discovered that my protective mother instincts are already kicking in, as I know now that I will fight any bird that tries to come between my child and me, now and forever, as long as I have the right BBQ accessories. I think any kid would appreciate that kind of love. In the meantime, I'm thinking tomorrow morning would be a good time to see if Damien likes fast food while I toss some french fries into the tree in front of the neighbor's kitchen. Let them deal with Devil Bird for a while. They said they would come to our St. Patrick's Day party and they didn't, so I think it's justified...