A Bird in the Hand

A Bird in the Hand

When I was a child, my friend Ronald and I found this baby bird on the ground near the woods by my house. We decided we were going to keep it. Ronald was the kind of person that had to have his plans all written out before he would do anything. So we thought we should go back to his house get ourselves a notebook and some colored pencils and write out everything we needed to have before proceeding.

Of course, we hadn’t gotten far before we realized we couldn’t just leave the bird on its own. He might fly away or be captured by some wild animal. I decided to forestall the trip to Ronald’s house and let him go by himself. Then I went back to where we spotted the bird. 

I needed some way to carry the bird but was somewhat skeptical of the health implications If I actually picked it up in my hand. I decided that the best way to carry the bird was in my shoe. 

I took off my right shoe and somehow coaxed the bird into it. Now I had to decide where to bring the bird. I figured since Ronald was the note taker, that I could be the bird taker. I thought that my house would be the best place for the bird. 

Now you should know this was not the first time I brought a stray animal into our house. And after the last worm incident, my mother was pretty clear on bringing stray animals into the house. Luckily for me, my mother was out shopping so when I got home no one was there. I needed a place to stash the bird until Ronald came over with his notebook. 

This was on a Wednesday afternoon. What’s special about Wednesdays is that we always eat Chinese take-out on Wednesdays. Knowing that my mom would not be cooking anything for supper, I figured that the safest place for the bird was in the oven. Since the bird was now sleeping in my shoe, I didn’t want to wake it up, so I put both the shoe and the bird in the oven and then called Ronald.

When Ronald came over the first thing we decided to do was to name the bird. After some discussion, we named it Woody, since we found it in the woods. 

We then had to figure out what to feed it. Worms would have been the best choice, but since the worm incident, I was not allowed to bring any worms into the house. Well, what do other birds eat? This was before the Internet, so we had to figure it out ourselves. After much thought, we decided that since birds fly and flies fly, they must eat similar things. We had observed that flies tend to eat droppings from other animals. And since we were animals and we certainly made droppings, that seemed like the easiest thing to get access to. So that was the direction we took. 

It was easy to get the droppings, however, how to feed them to the bird was a bit of a problem. We got one of my parent’s china dishes, the one with the flower design, figuring that birds must like flowers, placed the droppings on it, and put the plate in the oven too, hoping that if the bird woke up, it would enjoy a snack.

It was then that Ronald’s mother called and told him that he had to come home for his violin lesson. He left but we said we would meet again after the lesson to finish our plan. 

I checked in on the bird, who was still sleeping, and then decided to go upstairs and read one of my Superman comics. 

I must have fallen asleep for the next thing I heard was this loud scream coming from the kitchen. I went downstairs and stood in the shadow of my mother. There was no joy on her face. In fact, if looks could kill, suffice it to say, I wouldn’t be writing about this right now.

My mom made me take the bird outside and release it, which it seemed was exactly what the bird wanted since it quickly flew up in the air, circled me a few times, leaving a number of its own droppings on me. I guess it didn’t know that humans don’t eat droppings. 

Following that, I was sent to my room for some unspecified amount of time. I also wasn’t allowed to play with Ronald anymore. 

As for the china dish, I don’t remember that it ever was used again for a meal.