An unwelcome visitor

This morning, as I do every morning in the chilly weather, I went outside to warm up the car.  I didn't grab the door key, just my car key.  I have a history of locking myself out so I just left the door open.  As I am coming back in the house, I hear something moving around in the kitchen.  I freak out thinking someone was in my house.  It's just me and the baby there at this time and this sound is in between me and where the baby was sleeping.  So I sneak on in and peer around the corner into the kitchen.  Not someone, something.  A bird had flown in when I went outside.

There are 2 animals that I am VERY afraid of - snakes and birds.  Snakes to the point that I freeze.  I can't even move.  Birds do the opposite.  Birds turn me into a high-pitched screaming little girl.  I jump around, I scream, I hunker down and hide.  Everything that only makes the situation worse.  This bird is freaking out while I'm freaking out.  It was a joint freak out.  I run around and start shutting doors to other rooms and I try to figure out what to do.  My first thought was to sell the house but in this economy, even with a free bird thrown in, it's not likely to happen anytime soon.  So I start moving my way towards the bird, praying to God the whole way "please don't let this bird kill me", "please don't let this bird peck my eyes out", "please don't let this bird poop on anything of mine".  I also started wondering if it would make me a bad mom if I left the baby to fend for herself.

As I'm walking towards the bird, trying not to pee my pants, the bird starts fluttering all over.  The wings!  Oh God, the wings!!!  Then it takes off!  All I wanted to do was get by the bird so I could shut the door to the our bedroom where the baby was still sleeping.  I didn't want this thing anywhere near my beautiful, sweet, clean, free of bird poop baby.  Ugh!  But I was too slow cause right over my head it flew and straight into the bedroom.

So now the cursing starts.  I walk into the bedroom with my head hung down so I could protect my peepers.  I coudn't find the bird anywhere. Then I started thinking that maybe it was all a hallucination brought on by too many Claritin-Ds and Sudafeds.  So I start into my bathroom, and right in front of my eyes flies this freakin' bird.  So the screaming and the dancing and the cursing starts up again.  I jump out of the bathroom, having the wherewithall to pull the door shut behind me.

Trapped!  Aha!  Damned bird.  I got you!  I win.  The door I shut is a french door with glass panes so I walk back up to the door and peer in.  There sits the devil's spawn atop the door that goes into the potty room.  And there runs a stream of bird poop right down that same door.  Great!  Now we're gonna have to replace that one cause they haven't made enough Clorox to deal with that mess.

So the baby is awake now and laughing cause she thinks Mommy is playing and putting on a fun floor show.  I tried to explain to her that this was no laughing matter and then she looks at me and toots and breaks out this huge smile and I just think "Exactly".  There's no reasoning with a 13 month-old.

I try to figure out my next move.  By now the anger has set in due to the condition of the door.  Ugh again!  I wonder if there is a gun in the house that won't do very much damage if I go bird hunting.  I wonder if I can come up with a story good enough for the cops that will likely show up and the insurance adjuster that will be called in to fix the mess I'd create with said gun.  Then I think, well I could turn the gun around and swat the bird with it if it was a shotgun.  Then The Christmas Story flashed in my mind and I wondered where that trusty Red Rider was hiding.  I  came to my senses and realized that I would never be able to shoot a BB gun straight enough with the way I was shaking.  Then there was another mind flash, something about blood and guts, so I had to abandon all the Chuck Norris courses of action.  I thought that I might could throw a towel over the bird and run outside with it once I trapped it.  But that would require me to get closer to the bird and that was vetoed immediately.  What else?  A box, a cat, a man???  Sure, why didn't this happen during one of the many months my husband was unemployed????  Nice.

And then the bad thoughts really set in.  I've always heard that having a bird fly in your house was bad luck.  REALLY BAD LUCK.  It's an omen of sorts.  So then I start the freak out all over.  By this time, the baby decided she wanted in on the action and had climbed off the bed and crawled between my legs.  I was already massively late to work and still had a 45 minute drive ahead of me after dropping the baby off.  I called my husband for advice and he said to just leave the door shut and he'd take care of it when he got home.  I had to explain to brain boy that that would mean a bird would be in our bathroom all day long, pooping on everything.  I was assured that he would clean it all up.  Uh huh.  Right.  I'm sure.  But I had no other options.  I was running behind on time.  I knew that my boss would never, ever believe this story.  I had to give up the fight.  I lost.  The bird won.  For now...