Monday, October 23, 2006

Just desserts

The funniest thing happened today! :)

I took a long late lunch to pick my baby brother up from school and drop him off at Drivers ed. this afternoon. I grabbed lunch while I was out, and stopped at the waterfront park boat launch in Silverdale to eat before heading back to work.

I was sitting there enjoying the view and the fresh air, and a seagull flew up and landed on the ground next to my car. It looked so hungry and pitiful that I just HAD to share a chunk of bread from my sandwich with it, poor thing. If you've never been around gulls you may not understand, but the damned things are exceptional beggars, and convincing too. I always think of the bird lady from Mary Poppins when I see them, and I'm a sucker. Silly me. The MOMENT that piece of bread hit the ground, a huge mass of pigeons and seagulls flew up over the bank, where they had been lurking out of sight, and surrounded my car. I laughed and freaked out a little, and rolled up my window.

About this time, another car pulled up, drove past me, scattering the birds, (thankyou!) and parked a couple car lengths in front of me. This is a popular spot to sit and enjoy the view. He rolled down his window and sat, and I cautiously rolled mine back down too.

A few minutes passed, and a man that had been unloading his boat on the ramp pulled his truck and trailer up and parked them. He got out of his truck talking VERY loudly to himself about the stupid bleeping bleep-de-beep birds, and the bleeping bleep-de-bleep idiots that feed the birds, and the bleeping mess they make, and so on and so forth. He really had quite the tantrum about it as he locked his truck up and walked towards the dock. He looked at me as he passed, and kept on going. He stopped at the car of the gentleman in front of me and said "You hear me?" A screaming match ensued, whereby the man in the car screamed about how he hadn't fed the birds and about how the man from the truck was a bleeping idiot, and the man from the truck screamed more profanity.

I was feeling really bad about this time, figuring I was the cause of this whole scene with my little hunk of bread. I was tempted to get out and explain that it had been me. I wanted to tell the man from the truck that he shouldn't take life so seriously and he shouldn't let a few silly birds ruin his day. I wanted to tell him he was a profound idiot and he should learn to have some respect for his fellow human beings before he crossed paths with the wrong one and found himself in trouble. The world is not over because some one took pity on the hungry birds. I'm a hot headed chicken sometimes, and i knew it was probably better to just stay out of it, especially with the possibility that the jerk could throw me in the water or something worse, so I stayed put in my car, but I was seething and guilt ridden. Crazy thoughts flashed through my head. In the heat of my anger I wanted nothing more than to dump the rest of my lunch on the hood of his truck and watch the birdies dine. Thankfully, good sense prevailed, and I did nothing.

Truck man walked on down to the dock and to his boat, and the man in front of me got back in his car and made a phonecall. Not 5 minutes passed, and another car pulled up. The woman driving waved at the man in front of me as she drove passed him, and pulled right up to the boat ramp and stopped. Here is the shining moment of my afternoon. She got out of her car carrying a HUGE bag, ripped it open, and dumped at least 20 pounds of bird seed right smack in the middle of the boat ramp. The look on the face of the man from the truck was absolutely priceless. His eyes were wide, his jaw dropped, and suddenly he had nothing to say. He got in his boat and went off across the sound, and I laughed. And laughed. And laughed. Is that bad?

3 comments:

SjElizabeth said...

That isn't bad, it's karma, and it's a beautiful, beautiful thing :)

gloria said...

no WAY!!

That is HILARIOUS...I wanna be JUST like her!!

:)

Catherine said...

No way!! I think it's awesome that the Bird Gods allowed you such a beautiful moment of reprieve from your guilt and anger. :)