I realize that this chapter makes me look like a ridiculous person. Well, the whole thing makes me look like a ridiculous person, so I’ll just keep going. There are two things in this world that frighten me to the point of heart palpitations and loss of control of bodily functions and faculties: mice (as evidenced by earlier chapters) and BIRDS. The fuzzy rat-with-wings, commonly known as the bat, is also included as it is some terrible mish-mash of both. I would rather breathe fire than knowingly come within 50 yards of any of the above creatures. Most people understand my fear of mice, and definitely my fear of bats, but are puzzled by my aversion to Tweety Bird. First of all, they are horribly twitchy, unpredictable things. Anything that has to throw its head forward first as collateral while walking, just to make sure its lazy, scaly feet follow, should have gone extinct by now (As evidenced by the T-Rex). I’m convinced that all birds are just tiny reincarnated Jerry Lee Lewis’s doing a head-bobbing shuffle to some 1950s piano-banging. There’s a “whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on,” and like I said, I’d rather eat “great balls of fire” than get close to that business. Seriously. Go look up a video of Jerry Lee Lewis. Do it now. Really.
Secondly, their heads turn 360 degrees. Need I say more? Have you seen The Exorcist?? There has been this crazy trend to decorate baby nurseries with owls. Really, people??
Third, they fly. They fly unpredictably. They fly unpredictably, without a flight plan. Like the U.S. government, I prefer to have zero foreign objects flying haphazardly in my airspace. Particularly if they are dropping little white bombs wherever they please. How inconsiderate.
Fourth, Alfred Hitchcock clearly understood. His movie, The Birds, clearly demonstrates that birds are anti-people and are out to destroy us. And nobody, unless they are Psycho, questions old Alfred.
Finally, I have evidence, based on experience, that birds = bad. I was an innocent tiny child, and I loved all animals back then. My dad loved birds, and he taught me their names and how to recognize them. I even had a little child’s birding book. One day, Mom and I came home from preschool and found an overturned robin’s nest that had fallen from a tree in the front yard. The bright blue eggs were beautiful, and I was determined to save them. Mom said we could bring them inside to show Dad when he got home from work that night. So, there we sat at the kitchen table, the eggs and I, counting down the three hours before dad came home at six o’clock.
3:15 p.m.: Little Molly stares at the eggs. 3:17 p.m.: Little Molly inspects each egg to make sure they are all A-O.K. 3:20 p.m.: Little Molly checks the eggs again. 3:22 p.m.: Little Molly caresses each individual egg and tells it she loves it. 3:24 p.m.: Little Molly thinks the eggs are getting cold. 3:27 p.m.: Little Molly thinks about what the eggs’ mommy would do to warm them up. 3:33 p.m.: Little Molly, bright-faced, remembers that momma birds sit on their nests to incubate the eggs. 3:35 p.m.: Little Molly places her favorite teddy bear on the eggs to snuggle them. 3:36 p.m.: Little Molly thinks Mr. Bear isn’t working. 3:38 p.m.: Little Molly gently places the eggs and Mr. Bear in the microwave, ‘cause that’s what Mom does with the leftovers. 3:40 p.m.: Little Molly thinks ten minutes should do it and pushes “Start.” 3:41 p.m.: Little Molly hears an explosion and Mom comes running. 3:42 p.m.: Little Molly finds scattered bird bits and goo all over Mr. Bear. Little Molly cries. Mom throws Mr. Bear away and says, “Good Golly Miss Molly, we will have to get a new one.”
As if that wasn’t enough, my delicate psyche was assaulted with yet two more bird incidents. The first was simple, short, sweet, and highly traumatic. I stepped on a dead bird barefoot. Not ideal. I was going to cut off my leg, but Mom convinced me that soap and water would be okay. The second was even more awful. By this time, I had forgiven the birds, and we had let by-gones be by-gones. I had come home from school one day and found a robin’s nest resting on the little eve over the back door. No eggs this time, and I heard the little birds chirping. I looked around for their mom, but she was nowhere in sight. They were starving to death, I was sure of it. So, I went in Mom’s garden, dug up some tulips, and found an earthworm. I stole mom’s sewing scissors, as they were the sharpest, and I made worm bits for the baby birds. Still no sign of momma bird, so I gently took down the nest, and I fed the poor things their lunch. They were little pinkish naked things with transparent skin and bright yellow beaks. Even now, as I write this, I have to keep taking breaks to avoid gagging. They opened their surprisingly wide mouths and swallowed up the worm bits. Towards the end of their meal, I heard a loud squawking sound. Momma bird had come back. “Thank goodness,” I thought, as I figured I was going to have to feed them every meal, and that was a lot of work. Momma could take care of them now. I carefully placed the nest back over the doorway and went inside for my supper.
The next day, I came home from school to find MY momma was not so happy. Apparently, if baby birds acquire a human scent, their mom will toss them out of the nest. Well, I guess I had transferred my people smell to the baby birds, and the robin had dumped them out of the nest, straight onto the back doormat. Since this was MY doing, Mom made me clean it up, as any good parent would do. She said I had to pick up their bodies and throw them out. I tried to gently scoop their pink, broken-necked, icky selves up with a garden spade, but their fragile, transparent skin just tore all over the place. Mom said it was making too much of a mess and to just use my hands; hence the trauma. So, I had to pick up several naked bloody bird corpses WITH MY HANDS. Not my idea of a good time.
Now that I have delivered my thorough and factual thesis about why birds = bad, we come to the bird incident. A few months after Caleb and I got married, we were combining near Great Falls, Montana. We had a beautiful drive from our campsite to the wheat field, and we all piled in the pickup: Caleb and Cleto were in the front seat with me between them, and a couple of hired men were sleeping in the back seat. We zipped along the highway, observing the gorgeous scenery. Caleb is a very wise man, and he knew me well; therefore, when he smacked a bird with the corner of the windshield and it stuck fast, he made no big deal about it and hoped that I wouldn’t notice. As if I wouldn’t notice; that’s the same thing as Cleto bleaching his hair and changing his name to “Seabreeze” and hoping I wouldn’t notice.
So, there we were, just five custom cutters rolling down the highway with a bird smushed against the windshield. Cleto and I noticed the poor thing at the same time. Our reactions were NOT the same, however. Cleto said, “Ooh look, a birdie!” And I said, “AH!AH!AH!AH!AH!AH!” in my Sonic Boom voice (I call it my Sonic Boom voice because my brother has this alarm clock made for deaf people that basically breaks the sound barrier, and it is called the Sonic Boom). Then I did something even more absurd. I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but it must have had something to do with some ridiculous fight-or-flight-or-pee-yourself tendency. I didn’t pee (this time), but my hands did morph into tiny scooping shovels (like those yellow construction equipment scoopers at the playground), and I proceeded to make a digging motion behind Cleto. This is what people mean when they say, “panic mode.” My Edward-Scooperhands pushed Cleto forward, and I was attempting to bury myself in a magic happy place between Cleto and the seat. I feel that a new species should be named, and I am the only surviving critter: The Mollinator (Marsupial; identifiable by signature scooping hands and short repetitive screams; poops little purple stones when frightened; loves cheese puffs). Maybe there are others like me, but I don’t know, as we don’t travel in packs.
Anyway, poor Cleto was so disturbed that he was laughing hysterically, I was inconsolable, and the hired men in the back seat had received quite the wake-up call. This lasted for at least 3 minutes. Caleb (mistakenly) decided that the best course of action at this point was to remove the bird from the windshield WITH HIS BARE HAND!!!!!!! He rolled down the window (causing me to scream louder and bury further), reached his long arm out and grabbed the scaly little leg, and flung the bird away. I screamed at him, “Don’t you bring that hand back in here!!!!!!!!!!” But he did anyways. I frantically dumped the contents of my purse onto the floor, grabbed my hand sanitizer, and squirted at least three ounces of “Warm Vanilla Sugar” scented alcohol all over Caleb. My hands were shaking, so I had very poor aim (like I have good aim to begin with). I forced Cleto as far over to his side as I could in order to get away with my now-tainted husband. I would never be able to go near him again. After fifteen minutes of hyperventilating in air that smelled like Bath and Body Works mixed with Mr. Goodwrench, I calmed down enough to realize that if I boiled Caleb in bleach later that evening, we could probably still live together.
Cleto and Caleb had known me long enough to realize that it was all okay and this was an average Tuesday in Life With Molly. They recovered quickly. I think I may have traumatized those hired men in the back seat, though.
Molly's Dirt In The Skirt 