The Scale Of Bird-Likeableness

So, birds. I bet you don't have much of an opinion about them. They fly. They sing. They lay eggs. They poop on statues. That about sums them up, right? WRONG. Once, long ago, in another lifetime, I loved birds. I thought they were wonderful. I was well on my way to growing up to be a creepy bird-lady. Then later, events transpired, and I became apathetic to the idea of birds. They weren't great, they weren't terrible, they just were. Then later, more events transpired, and I came to hate birds with a deep passion. Birds were evil. Birds were malicious little demon-creatures. Spawns of Satan. Events. What events? I thought you'd never ask.

*Now, take my hand (or don't, if you'd rather not. It's not mandatory) and travel back with me...back...back...back through the sands of time...back into another year, another decade, another lifetime...back, to when I was nine years old, when I first thought of birds as more than just inanimate objects...back to before the blinders were removed from my eyes and I could understand the concept of evil...back to when all was right with the world...*

Here we are. In my childhood. The good old days. Currently, I am living in San Angelo. We have this awesome old rock house and a million-billion pecan trees and giant mesquite trees, perfect for climbing. There are scorpions, fire ants, dirt, cactus, and so much more that a child of nine can play with. This is the pinnacle of my childhood...the place where memories are made and fun is an every day, all day occurrence. This...is Texas!!! *Cue dramatic intro music*

So, in this awesome old rock house, there is also an awesome old rock chimney. And one day, as I was doing something in the living room, I hear something...a noise...coming from the chimney. It sounds almost like...chirping.

Dad was in the room, too. I told Dad that I hear chirping coming from the chimney. Dad says adamantly that I must be imagining things. I try to tell myself that Dad is right (cause my Dad is always right). But I keep hearing the sound. I tell Dad, more urgently this time, that I really really think I do hear chirping coming from the chimney, and I'm wondering how in the world Dad could be so dense as to not realize that the sound is chirping and it's coming from the freakin' chimney! But he is still adamant that no, it must just be a bird from outside.

Well, if he was going to be that way...I stalked over to the fireplace, determined to prove that I was right; there were birds in the chimney! Dad orders me to stay away from the fireplace. I sat a few feet away from it, staring laser beams into its smoky depths, willing whatever was inside to come out. Nothing happened.

So, I did what any good, obedient child would've done; I waited until Dad left the room, marched over to the fireplace and stuck my hand inside. I'm sure a few moments later, when Dad heard the shriek of delight and surprise emanating from the living room, he regretted ever leaving me there alone.

I didn't care what punishment I got for disobeying him. I pulled one...two...three...four...five! birds from their sooty prison. Imagine the utter gleeful delight of a child who adores animals (especially wild animals) and suddenly has five of them fall down her own chimney! It's like Santa came early and threw five squabbling baby sparrows down the chimney to save time.

In all reality, the birds were the essence of ugliness. They were still too young to have feathers, and squabbled like crazy, for what, I didn't know. I quickly became a celebrity and a hero, to my siblings, who all wanted to hear the dramatic, highly-embellished tale of how I'd risked life, limb, and Dad's wrath to save the nasty, disease-infested, ash-covered, obnoxious baby birds, which surely would've died, had it not been for my bold act of disobedience.

I found out pretty quick that being thrust into motherhood is not much fun. The baby birds squawked every minute of the day, no matter how many cornmeal clumps I fed to them. They were never happy, never satisfied, and after a few days I was beginning to rue the day I'd pulled them from the fireplace. When they began to die off, I was falling apart on the outside, but inside I was relieved. When the last one died, I cried, but only halfheartedly. I'd failed them, but I blamed it on their real mother, who somehow managed to let her entire family fall down a chimney. Some mother she was.

After that, I became apathetic towards the concept of birds. I wasn't opposed and I wasn't in favor. It didn't really make a difference to me either way what happened to them. They could fall into the fireplace while a fire was in it or they could fly up into the clouds for all I cared. Made no difference to me either way.

That changed when we moved to Minnesota. I was about 13. We (Dad, Nikki, Jim and I) had been watching TV late one night. Our program ended at around midnight and I fully expected Dad to announce that it was time for bed. Another program started on TV--a movie--and Dad said we'd like it, so we watched it. It turned out to be The Birds, by Alfred Hitchcock. Stupidest. Movie. Ever. Eventually, watching seagulls attack helpless people unprovoked, pecking their eyes out and somehow busting through car windows and doors to get to the people inside (you never find out why, by the way) was enough to tip the scale from "apathetic" to "dislike". Go figure.

Another weight was thrown on the "dislike" side of the scale when we moved to Ceresco, when we somehow came into possession of a demon-possessed parakeet. Actually, he wasn't demon-possessed when we got him. He was actually normal for a little while, and I actually almost broke my hand trying to save him from a rabid ceiling fan.

But things took a turn for the worst when we got him a mirror. Birds love mirrors, right? Yes, they do. They love them. They LOVE them. THEY LOVE THEM!!!! They love them so much, they attack their owners who thought they were so cute in the beginning. They sit with their beak touching the mirror and chirp to the budgie inside, so in love with their own stupid reflection that they literally--LITERALLY--bite the hand that feeds them!!

Over time, I grew to hate that bird above most other things in life. He'd turned from a cute little blue bird who would sit on your finger or shoulder and chirp into your ear, into a rabid, angry, mean-spirited spawn of Satan.

That did it. The scale was forever shifted from "dislike" to "hate-with-a-deep-burning-passion". No, don't try to convince me that I've just had bad experiences. I don't care if your budgie was nice. I don't care if you raised a sparrow from infancy. I don't care if your budgie would tuck you in at night and bring you a midnight snack. I hate them. I hate them forever.

The Greatest Post In The History Of Never

So, pretty much, school is nothing like I remember it. Don't ask me why, cause I don't know. I really don't. All of a sudden, school is all...all...serious. And there's way more to do than I remember last time. And I don't ever remember hating any class the way I hate Communications Class. How some people ever major in that subject, I'll never know. They never had my teacher, I guess.

Anyway. These days, I don't ever know what day it is. Like right now, I have no clue. I'm even thinking about it, but for the life of me, I don't know. It could be any of the days. Something tells me it's either Thursday or Friday, though. I can't remember what classes I had today, so that won't work. Oh well. All I really know is that the weekend is almost here. I think. I hope.

Boy, I need a day for nothing but sleep and non-thinking. I'm seriously sick of using my brain. between classes, homework, bible study, dentist appointments, paperwork for my program, reading for history class, making doctor appointments (to get stupid shots to put on the paperwork that I mentioned earlier), signing up for classes, and everything else that one does in a day, I'm pretty much just thankful to be conscious.

Speaking of which, I'm drifting off in between sentences. Sometimes in the middle of sentences. Sometimes in the middle of words. Whatever. Don't hate me for making this one short. I'm so mad at myself, too. I had so many ideas for this blog. Ideas that, between trying to remember what day it is and drifting off every ten seconds or so, I've since forgotten. I promise, the next one will be good. Cross my heart.

I'm tired. But I like my blog, so that's why I'm still lingering. Okay, enough lingering. Later, people. Sorry for the lame post. Next one will rock you like a hurricane.

A Fun Idea...With A Twist!

So I think this is a fun idea. Ready? No, you're not ready. You think I'm going to say something like, "Go to the mall" or "Ride a giant roller coaster" or "Bike across the United States" or something like that. No no. You've got it all wrong. Those aren't good ideas. This, though...THIS is a good idea.

A good idea is to witness something really amazing, like the mayor shooting a mafia drug lord. Something like that, that's totally insane. THEN, be seen by the mayor, and have a "moment" where neither of you says anything, but in his eyes you can tell he's vowing to kill you with his bare hands. Then you can run away and tell the police, who take Mr. Mayor into custody. But his cronies are everywhere. You'll never be safe.

After that, let the police take you into witness protection. The police stage an elaborate hoax, to convince the general public (and the cronies) that you've fallen off a bridge and drown in the river below, except that only your clothes were recovered (darn). Only thing is, the cronies have seen it all before. They know that when a person goes into witness protection, they are publicly killed off as a precaution. They aren't fooled by the police's mediocre attempts at killing you. The only thing your "death" does is plunge your family into a bottomless pit of grief and despair. Way to go, guys.

So you're stuck in a windowless basement somewhere drinking bad coffee and playing video games, ignorant of the fact that those darned cronies are following the thread left by incompetent police officers, while your family is beside themselves, hysterical with grief.

Then one day, you get tired of the same old video games and decide to do what you're not supposed to...get on the computer! Why they left you alone with a computer and working internet access, we'll never know. They're just incompetent.

Anyway, you slide into the chair by the computer, glancing apprehensively over your shoulder. You slide the screen closer towards yourself, so even if your handlers see you at the computer and start freaking out, you could just be like, "Dude, I'm playing solitaire. Relax." and they'd feel all stupid and guilty for grouching at you while you were playing solitaire. They areincompetent, after all.

Then you get on Facebook (under the alias they gave you when you signed up, just in case you broke the rules and got on Facebook) and send secret codes to your family telling them that you're not dead and you can swim anyway, so it's illogical that you would drown from falling in water, and like you'd even be out on bridges at night anyway.

And while you're at the computer, you hear the door open, and you think it's your handlers, so you look up and start to say something about solitaire, but no, it's the cronies. Hundreds of them. Thousands. And you're like, "Oh. Crap. Now what?" So you start doing magic tricks. And you show them trick after trick, and it gets to be sort of fun. But they don't realize that one of the tricks you did was a hypnotizing trick, and now they are all hypnotized.

Instead of making them all leave or throw themselves off a cliff, you realize the potential you possess, now that you have hundreds of thousands of cronies that will do whatever you tell them to do. So what do you do with your newly-aquired power?

Duh! You take over the world! And then you spend the rest of your life sipping drinks out of coconuts with bendy-straws and dropping things from high heights to watch them shatter.

That's my fun idea.