My kids have labeled me a murderess.
Friday on the way to school, I ran over a bird. Really, we sort of ran into each other. He was sitting right in the middle of the road and decided a little too late to take off and well, he ended up in my grill.
My kids turned to me, looks of disbelief in their eyes, and screamed, “Mah- ahm! You killed it!” Feathers were flying everywhere.
We passed by it later that day and they reminded me, “There’s the bird you killed.”
I hate to tell them, but birds don’t rank up there with the smart animals. I mean, I know their brains are teeny and stuff, but let’s pretend for just a second that we are birds.
There are millions of trees around. Lots of green grass with juicy worms and stuff. Can you imagine thinking, “Hey, I think I’ll go check out that great stretch of blacktop”?
We used to live in a house that had a bunch of windows across the back. Occasionally, a bird would fly right into them. Thwack! We could hear it all across the house. Usually it didn’t kill them, but it would stun them really bad. They would lay on the back patio, wings spread, staring blankly into space. After a while, they would finally get up and try to fly again, nine times out of ten, right back into the windows. That brain must be even smaller than I can imagine.
And ducks. Imagine flying over somewhere and you see ducks on a pond, none of whom are moving. From nearby bushes, you hear duck language, but with an accent you’ve never heard before. It keeps saying the same thing over and over.
“Ka-wack. Ka-wack. Ka-wack-wack-wack-wack-wack. Ka-wack. Ka-wack.”
I’d be a little leery right off the bat. It might be the Duck Mafia or something. Yet ducks will still fly down to check ’em out, only to end up on someone’s dinner table. You’d think that eventually word would get around in Duck World. “Hey, if you see a pond full of stiff ducks that only know two words, steer clear!”
Geese are even worse. They see a field full of white rags and for some reason think they might be relatives. “Oh, Junior, let’s go see if it’s Aunt Mary and the kids!” Ka-boom! Oops, guess not.
But my kids don’t care how dumb birds are, only that their mom killed one. Hey, I’m sorry, but I don’t want to slam on my brakes and one of us can be killed instead.
End of discussion.
