Friday, October 14, 2011

I Killed Woody Woodpecker

Yup, it's true. Although I still maintain that Woody just tried to take on my van and lost.

I think we have all had those experiences, you know where a bird flies right in front of your car and you swear there is no way you couldn't have not hit it.  (Don'tcha love the double-negative?)  Lemme tell ya, from my experience today, you'd know.

Because it comes with a very jolting thump. And if you're super-special, you might also get a bit of bird guts flying up and landing on your windshield.

Guess what?!?  I'm super-special!!

So I was on the phone with my hubby at the time. The birdie came swooping in from the side, and then there was the whole thump-and-guts thing. I might have screamed. Or gasped. I don't know.

All I know is I started yelling to my husband what had happened (because as we all know, yelling information over the phone is much more effective than simply speaking information when you are startled) to which he responded in the sweetest, most understanding way- by accusing me of being a bird-killer. What do you do if your darling, adorable, least-sensitive-man-in-the-world husband responds to your upset-ed-ness by calling you a murderer?

Well, I don't know what you would do. But I took the high road. I was the grown up. I was mature in my response, allowing no morsel of revenge to take place.

Or, I pulled over and took a picture of the bird, still embedded in the front of my van, and texted it to him.

You will have to guess which one of these things I chose to do.

Oh, and by the way, removing a dead birdie who is still warm from it's position half-way under your hood is a very sad thing. And you might not realize that your kids are watching the whole thing.  And you might feel bad about just putting it in the gas station garbage can, but you don't dare bring it into the van to bring it home for a proper burial.

Because good heavens, do you know what would happen if Drew got a hold of a dead bird?!?

After a quick Google search I identified it as a Pacific Northwest hairy woodpecker.   And that made me sad, because I love woodpeckers.

Anywhoo, I did the grown-up mature thing again and answered the kids' questions about the bird.  And then I did the brilliant slightly dysfunctional move of using this as a life lesson in why we don't cross the street without looking, or we might get hit by a car and die and leave nothing but a severed wing in the road as the only piece of evidence that your life has ended in such a horrible, tragic way.

OK, I didn't go that far.  But I did remind them of the bird the next day when Drew tried to run straight into the parking lot without looking. 

Killing Woody the Woodpecker with your car - the life lesson that keeps on giving.

1 comment:

Bliss said...

did you get the dramatic poof of feathers? I hit a little finch type bird one time and felt bad about the bird but was so amazed by the shower of feathers that rained down...