Disturbing the natural order of things
It's been a while since I've seen
a dead
animal.
Or one that's alive for that matter. Minus the geese
that randomly assault
me as I run laps on Girard Park's maze of death
known as the running
track. I don't understand how a creature whose
diet is primarily bread
and Snickers wrappers can be so strong. But
then my diet is primarily
chicken strips and Baby Ruth wrappers, so I
can't really put up much of a
fight.
A while back I did a story on UL Lafayette's child
day care center. As
I prepared to conduct an interview, I looked at the
babies and thought,
"Wow. Babies."
There wasn't really much more to it, but then I
considered the last time
I saw a baby (aka "Life's little crap
factories") was the last time I had
a big family gathering. Babies
aren't really a regular site for me because I
don't have any and Kmart
closed.
As I thought about the baby factor, I then thought
about the nature factor.
To you college students who live in apartments
in Lafayette, consider
the following question. Aside from pets, what is
the last animal you saw
that does not fall into the following category:
squirrel on campus, bird
on a telephone wire, bug in your kitchen or
goose chasing you?
It's hard isn't it? Apartment life takes us away from all the opossums
and
oraccoons we may have enjoyed seeing the corpses of if we lived
back
home near a tree.
Don't you miss nature? Its perfect glory and
mysterious plan? I sure don't.
Nature freaks me out. Especially after what happened to
me the other night.
So
I was sitting around watching Futurama or
something when I decided to go
get something from one of my apartment
complex's vending machines. I'm a
betting man, so I figured I'd try my
luck at the snack machine. There's a 7-1
shot you'll get the snack you
want and a 3-1 shot you'll get a snack at all.
Hey, it's how I relax. I
can stop any time I want.
So I went outside and approached the long, brick
hallway housing the machines.
Near the edge of the hallway was a dove
or pigeon or something just sitting
there. For some bizarre reason it
startled me and for some even more bizarre
reason I told it "Hey."
"Hey" is apparently bird for "OK, freak out!"
because the bird did just that.
First, it flew at me. Then it flew
diagonally away and up. Only it couldn't fly
up because we were under a
brick walkway. As it continually banged its head
against the ceiling I
yelled things like "Oh my God!" and "Stop it!" The bird
would not stop,
however, and thumped "upward" toward the candy machine
in an effort to
burst through sheet rock.
Then it made one final charge and flew straight up.
It hit its head on the ceiling
and fell down INTO A GARBAGE CAN.
I stood there with my mouth wide open, staring at
the garbage can, which I
could see had a toilet seat sticking out of it.
Naturally, I did what any sympathetic college guy
would do in this situation. I
ran back to my apartment to get my
digital camera. By the time I got back,
however, the dove thing
escaped, so I pressed G-5 for Snickers and got some
Funyuns.
The dove—international sign of peace. More like
international sign of arbitrary
lunacy.
©2004 Tim Landry
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