Friday Playdate » Blog Archive » …And remember, the next scream you hear could be your own!*

On Friday afternoon, Charlie’s teacher reminded his class that there was an all-school picnic that night and they should all come. Charlie popped up and said, “A picnic? At MY school? I want to go!” He was very excited, partly because they were promising him hamburgers, but mostly because after two years of going to stuff at Henry’s school, it was FINALLY his turn.

I was excited, too, because I had both forgotten about the picnic AND forgotten to make any sort of plan for dinner. Problem solved! Picnic it was. Of course, that meant that the boys would be eating hamburgers two nights in a row, because Thursday night we had eaten at Johnnie’s, as a fundraiser for Henry’s school. Stupid schools are making me fat.

The picnic was lovely, consisting of hamburgers and hot dogs and assorted chips, served in the school gym. The boys ate their dinner and then started munching cookies, while telling Wade about how I had taken them to Saturn Grill for cookies after school. And then Henry told Wade that another little boy had shared HIS cookies with Henry at lunch. “So let me get this straight,” Wade said. “This is the THIRD time today you’ve had cookies?”

“Yep,” said Henry, around a mouthful of blue icing.

“Great,” Wade said and looked at me.

“What? WHAT? He has a friend! Who shares with him! That’s GOOD!” I had a point, you know.

Eventually, we pried the cookie remains out of the boys’ hands and herded them out to the parking lot. As we left the building, there were birds EVERYWHERE, hundreds of them, circling around the school. It was horrifying.

I hate birds; they freak me out. But for some reason, in our neighborhood, there is a huge colony of I don’t know what kind of bird. They sit on the power lines and fly around in ginormous flocks and basically terrorize the holy living hell out of me. I feel like I’m in a Hitchcock movie, although apparently the worst part for Tippi Hendren wasn’t the possibility of being pecked by the birds but the probability of being groped by Hitch, which really IS worse. But still! Birds! Freaking me out! Because seriously, if they get a leader, we’re done for.

Even writing about it is freaking me out.

Anyway, we come out into the parking lot and here are all these birds just circling and the kids are hopping around in the parking lot and I’m trying to hold on to Henry and cover my head and run to the car, and Charlie points at the sky and says, “Look, Mama, look! It’s a STAMPEDE of BIRDS!”

I think it was the cookies that made him so smart.

*Promotional tag for The Birds. Yes, really!

16 Comments so far

I can totally envision you guys surrounded by birds. Was anyone a target?

School friends, makes a parent happy.

Cookies, friends, no-fuss dinner. Perfect day!

Tina, we were blissfully bird-poop free. Charlie’s OLD school, however, was across the street from an office building with a pond. And GEESE. We were forever dodging goose poop on our way into the building.

Ick. Birds! Freaking me out.

I feel a lot better about giving Jack chocolate chip cookies the other day now!

Yes! We have those birds too. They freak me out. We also live right on the edge of a huge cornfield but we have mean pidgeons who live in our garage. I swear I’ve chased them out 100 times. I think they know how to open the garage door. So I live in the country but have dirty city birds.

I just don’t know anymore. The Midwest is weird.

Could it have been the crumbs all over the school?

I still get spooked over that one scene in The Birds where there is just one bird on the jungle gym, then a few, and then it’s covered. All the while Tippi sits there oblivious.

Tippi was oblivious because Alfred kept grabbing her ass. That’s why she doesn’t notice the birds.

A neighborhood a few blocks over from me had a lot of birds and every night at 5:00, which is apparently bird happy hour, all the neighbors would come out of their houses and bang their pots, pans, spoons or whatever they had that was loud for about 20 minutes. It took a couple weeks but the birds went away.

Liz

I am in the Bird Hating Camp as well. Like - out in nature, they are fine. In my yard, or heaven forfend, my chimney, it is a real problem. I will NEVER have one as a pet. Creepy ass feathered rodents.

AND they’re trying to kill us; you think this bird flu crap is happening by chance? Nosirree. I’m with you.

Freaking birds.

I’m glad that I’m not the only mother who forgets how many times her son has had cookies in one day. You’re my kind of mother. (Thought today my son turned down a “bear claw” in favour of Cheerios. There may be hope yet.)

I LOVE that tagline and seriously, you’re gonna need to eat a lot more than 2 hamburgers to get fat.

I have always wanted Tippi’s little Aston-Martin convertible… and that stunning green suit with fawn-colored gloves. Oh my oh my! It’s like the set designer said “What car would break your heart the most if it got totally covered in bird droppings, inside and out?” and went from there.

Owen asked us if he could get a bird as a pet recently. I’m sure he was shocked at my response- I jumped out of my chair and said NO!
No birds.
No sharp beaked, beady eyed, chirping, cheeping, creatures in my house!

We have birds living in our chimney. What a noisy nuisance! I thought it was only a few until I saw them yesterday heading in - there were probably about 10 of them. ten too many!

Ha ha! I hate birds too. I wonder if yours are starlings? They roost on the power grids here and the city actually plays a loud recording of hostile bird noises at the power grids to keep them from nesting there. It sounds AWFUL!

Oh yeah. I actually did a story using all the 911 calls that have resulted from people calling to report an animal in distress that they can hear inside the power grid! It was hilarious. “I think something’s dying in there! I can hear it squawking and it sounds awful!”

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