The Shitbird

[TDN]

Scylla, it's too bad you didn't get it with the pellet gun. Can you try dynamite? Or a giant cartoony mallet?

[Scylla]

Prelude: An Admonition to the Moderators.

This is a story of a curse. Of a rage and hatred to equal that of Achilles on the fields of Troy. And, as Briseus was to Achilles, so is the placement of this thread in this forum to me. Leave this thread in the Pit, where it belongs or suffer the curse of He-whose-thread-must-not-be-moved.

Despite, my genteel language in describing the following events, my rage is large. It is only with the greatest degree of self-control, that I describe the following in mild language. Think of it as the calm whisper of a madman before he explodes.


****

Perhaps you've heard of the Shitbird. If so, it has probably come up in the context of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, Unicorns, Aliens, or threesomes with college girls. Everybody knows somebody who claims they've seen bigfoot, or had a threesome, but in the way of urban myths, nobody will actually claim that they, personally, have firsthand knowledge. So, let's get this out of the way:

The Shitbird is real. I know.

This is my story:

About two weeks ago I walked up to my Ridgeline truck and there was a bird, a Robinlike thing sitting on the mirror. It flew off as I got closer. When I got in the truck I noticed the bird had shit all over the mirror. The mirror. I wondered at the physics of it. The mirror is at an angle. Gravity would tend to pull shit down, not sideways. So, the bird must have thrust its cloaca towards the mirror at the moment of shitting in order to impart a horizontal velocity thus impacting the mirror.

It seemed unusual, but I am hardly an expert in vectors as they apply to avian defecation upon an inclined plane, so after puzzling over it for a few moments, I went to work, washed my truck over lunch, and promptly forgot about it. It could have been a freak gust of wind that blew the shit into my mirror.

'Tis the wind and nothing more!' I thought.


I came home that evening, got changed, and went outside for a jog. There, on the same mirror was the Shitbird. As I got closer, he flew away. There was another huge shit in the same place, plus he'd shit on the other side of the mirror as well.

I thought about this as I jogged, and concluded that my truck mirror was probably a convenient roosting spot near his nest.

Only this, and nothing more.

So, I came home and washed the shit off with the hose, and then moved my truck to the other side of my wife's car. The next morning, no bird, no shit, no problem.... until I opened the door. While the bird was nowhere to be seen, there was birdshit on the door handle.... and now my hand.

I am beginning to feel mildly peeved.

I go back to the house, wash my hand, get a towel and some windex, wipe off the door handle, and go to work. I saw no bird. No reason to assume it was the same bird, right? No reason to get angry. I just let it go.

For a week, that's the end of it.

Last Saturday, I drive off in the morning for a run with my running buddy. I return at 10 AM. It is already getting hot. At work, in the heat, I leave the windows partly open to keep the inside of the car cool. If I'm at home for the night I leave them closed in case it rains. On a Saturday in July, if I know I'm going out again, and if it is really hot, and then, only sometimes, I will leave the windows open to keep the car cool. Last Saturday was an if, if, and sometimes kind of July Saturday.

Later that day, when I returned to the car, the Shitbird was on the mirror, and so was the shit. I walked closer and the shitbird flew off. It wasn't a particularly big shit on the mirror, but it was a shit nonetheless.

"Hmmm. " I thought. "I'm going to have to do something about this."

I checked the door handle, and it was clean. I opened the door, got in, turned on the key, put the truck in "drive" and got shit all over my hand. The Shitbird had crapped right on the gear selector. It had also crapped on the dashboard. Oddly, the first thought that crossed my mind was "Well, that solves that puzzle." The vast quantity of shit on the gear selector and dashboard explained the relatively small quantity of shit on the mirror. The Shitbird must have been nearly empty for his final effort.

That evening, after cleaning the car... again, I told my wife of the Shitbird. "What are you going to do, Scylla?" She asked.

I looked at her mildly. "I'm going to kill the Motherfucker."

Sunday morning, I got the pellet gun, a cup of coffee, the new Dave Robicheaux novel and a chair. I put the truck in the Shirtbird's preferred location, and then I waited.

(Part two coming up. Will post this now, so it doesn't get lost to the Hamsters.)

[Frank]

(Part two coming up. ...)

Oh, for Pete's sake, don't bother. You get a hardon for a fucking bird because you can't be bothered to take the minor effort required to keep birds out of your car. Whoop-de-do.