I live on the East Coast--please,
don't hold that against me--and you might have heard we got some snow
this weekend. It's funny, when I was living in Michigan we got snow
all the time but USA Today never wrote articles about it. Nor did Al
Roker come for a visit. Oh well, such is the fate of the flyover states.
Anyway, so we got a few feet of snow
and everyone has been pretty much hunkered down in their homes the last day
or so, thanks partially in part to the governor's driving ban--with
up to a year in prison if you get caught or some such bullshit. It's
mainly to stop joyriders, but still.
There are four humans stuck
together--not literally--in my apartment right now. (There's usually
three, but there's an extra this weekend so four instead of three and
if three's a crowd what's four make?)
There's also one non-human in our
apartment.* And, no, we do not have any pets.
Above our ventilation fan in our
bathroom, a bird of some kind has made a nest for the winter. I think
it's just the one, and not a family, by the sound of things. The lone
bird was probably an outcast and while he or she hasn't bothered us
too much up to this point, that changed during the blizzard. Now, we
haven't bothered removing the bird since, unlike squirrels or rats or
what have you, you don't have to worry about a bird chewing through
wires or destroying any other part of your house.
Well, it's unlikely a bird would do that. Still could, but unlikely.
Oh, and it's not my house. Not that I don't care about or respect the property I
rent, it's just that, well, it's not my house and we all need a place to call home during the winter, don't we?
When I woke up this morning and walked
into the bathroom--as I am wont to do after a good night's sleep--I
stepped in bird shit. We're not talking Radagast the Brown levels of
bird shit, but shit is shit and even a drop on the floor is too much
of it.
I cleaned it up all Spic and Span like
and I had a few words with the bird. Me and the bird are copacetic
now but I'm a bit worried. The fan is above the very spot where I
brush my teeth and spend hours preparing my luminous hair.
Will tomorrow bring more shit?
Will tomorrow I be shit on?
I'd rather deal with the blizzard.
*we did have a bat once that circled
the ceiling light in our living room several times before I noticed
it. From what I've read, one of the main reasons a bat would ever fly into a house or any place it's unfamiliar with is because it's rabid. Rabid. Yikes. I managed to trap it in the stairwell and leave the door to our
back porch open for it to find its way out. When I got back from work that
day, the bat was gone. So it either flew out or found a home somewhere in the
rafters of our Harry Tuttle-esque/Super Mario Bros.-inspired
pipe-filled basement. So it's possible I have two non-humans living with me.
