DIE, BABY, DIE!

I’m on day three of this bird dying in my house. It’s in the air ducts, in possibly the most unreachable place ever (my husband says it’s in the walls) and I am going crazy.

I can only take SO MUCH PAIN! Why is this happening to me?

I feel so bad. Okay, full disclosure, there is also a bird in our downstairs stove, dead, that no one wants to take out. It too fell victim to our duct system. It’s covered with ashes and totally dried out. My granddaughter discovered it one day opening the stove door.

We never use that stove; it’s like one of those things you put in for the last days when we’re all going to be huddled down in the basement for the nuclear winter and we don’t want to freeze to death. Or go without popcorn. Whichever.

Birds have landed in our vents before but I’ve always been able to scare them out, catch them in a bath towel and set them free to be eaten by hawks.

The cats keep prowling around the furnace closet. They recognize the sound of desperation. That sound is like the Cinnabon smell in the mall to them.

I keep wanting to talk to the bird and tell him/her about heaven and how it’s going to be a better place. Now I just wish it would die, but I feel terrible even thinking that.

I always feel this way about these things. You know how spiders get caught in your bathtub and you see them running around and you know there are not going to be any mosquitoes or flies in your tub for them to eat, but then every time you remember to take it out, it’s decided to hide in the drain?

Or ants. I hate to kill ants. They’re really such little marvels. But you can only have so many running around your kitchen and they start to get on your nerves, and suddenly you’re a killing machine, pressing their little bodies under your thumb and washing them off under the faucet.

When I have to kill something, I try to kill it fast. On the theory that that’s the way I want to go so I’m sending a message out into the universe. If I’m in a car wreck, I’m okay with a broken leg and a few other things, but…. Or if I’m in a plane crash, I only want to be scared for just a few seconds.

Then I want to be with that bird in our ve

Comments

Mairi dhubh said…
This is a fabulous blog! It's so nice to read up about you (Clay posted a link to this on facebook). I feel your pain so much re: the birds. I lived with my sister in upstate NY for 5 years and she has a mini farm and generations of barn cats would come and go and something would always happen to the kittens! They'd get stepped on by the horse, or attacked by the fox or some such and my niece would always break her heart over them. We would always pray over the kittens as they died and hoped they understood somehow, and tell them that they were joining a great family of other cats and dogs and unfortunate animals and pets!
9:02 AM
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