If you’ve received any of these Captain Catastrophe articles before, you know that if anything is more impressive than the complete lack of hand-eye coordination I seem to possess, it would be the lengths to which the animal world seems to be plotting against me.
This is why I don’t eat vegetables. See, I figure if animals start to attack me, the vegetables would rush to my aid–since I don’t hurt them. Now, you might be wondering why I don’t eat vegetables and enlist the aid of the animal population, but I have a simple answer to that: animals are far more tasty. So that’s that.
Anyway, the walk from the Public Service Building of We Energies (where I work sometimes up to four times a week) to my parking building is about a block. It seems longer because I’m pretty lazy when you get down to it, but it’s only about a block. On that walk is a lot where an old decrepit warehouse used to exist. They pulled it down earlier this year; most think so they could put in a parking lot. It had to be done. Windows were broken and I’m not the only one that suspect rats thrived in there. All I ever saw was a little white mouse, but that made me shriek “Eeeek!” fairly good.
The site has been replaced with a covering of gravel and seagulls have fallen in love with the place. In that little block, there has to be forty some gulls hanging out. Walking around on the gravel. Making lots of noise. And nesting.
I walk past this site most evenings and I usually take that little alley flanking it. I was grooving to the tunes on my iPod-like Zen mp3 player and didn’t notice the new gull.
The day before, I walked on the side by the gulls and saw a nesting gull. I thought it might be fun to see how close I could guess.
Not too close it turns out.
The daddy instantly saw me, though I had deployed my stealth like ninja abilities. He made one heck of a caw-type of call from his beak. He launched into the air, and hovered on the wind while staring at me. It looked like that shot from “The Birds” where the gulls are watching the gas station burn from the sky. It was surreal as he hovered there looking at me like he was going to kill me.
I did what any strong young man would have done. I ran away as fast as I could while mumbling “Not the face! Not the face!”
Well, tonight, I was a little more cautious as I walked by, but I still like walking on that side of the alley. The site is surrounded by a silt fence and I neglected to notice one gull actually nested on the other side, the alley side of the fence. Unfortunately, I was watching the couple that yesterday had scared me so bad. And since I had my mp3 player going, full blast with Whitesnake of all things, I didn’t hear the warning calls.
I almost stepped on him and his nest.
I looked down and there was this 200 pound gull with an angry grimace on his beak. Luckily, he didn’t peck at me because I immediately ran for it.
All part of the conspiracy. When I got home, a little bunny was waiting in my backyard again. Your plot didn’t work this time, Bugs. Keep planning–and I’ll keep eating the rest of your friends in the animal kingdom.
That’ll learn ya.