Orville Wright Redenbacher aka Popcorn

thanksgiving ... roast turkey ... and the leftovers from tommy turkey ... i finished clearing all the meat off the bones seems like a better word than carcass, eh? and sat down to read a few blogs before the game started ... i laughed when i read this post by Tanya ... and then i remembered that i never did tell the sad and disturbing story about a very, very stupid (and very dead) bird and Mrs. Moth...

once upon a time in september there lived a grey bird who didn't know when to keep his beak out of places where he should not be ... he flew around the blue sky and then landed upon the roof at a month of sundays ... being a ground feeder and not finding a comfortable place to roost since the roofers had eliminated the overhang where he and his buddies used to like to hang out and poop this grey bird had absolutely no business there ... but he decided to poke around anyway ... he hopped over to a brown metal square and pecked at it a bit ... he realized that it was not food, but he decided to investigate a little further ... he hopped under the metal square and found a round tube ... there was very little clearance between the top of the metal square and the edge of the tube, but this grey bird was too beaky to let it go at that ... he squished himself up onto the edge of the round tube ... he pecked a bit and turned his head, scoping the tube with his beady eyes ... he pecked a bit more ... and lost his balance ... and found himself sliding down the round tube ... he fell and fell and fell ... he scrabbled and clawed and tried to stop his slide on the slippery slope to the depths of darkness ... he thudded to a stop ... bruised ... broken ... peck ... peck peck peck ... peck peck peck peck peck ... he heard voices asking who was popping popcorn in the microwave and he stopped ...... peck ... peck peck peck ... peck peck peck peck peck ... he heard the voices again ... he fluttered and gasped and pecked and flapped and scrabbled ... but he could not get out ... he heard the voices again ... one of them was calling animal control ... there's a bird in my microwave vent and i can't get him out ... no, the vent won't budge ... no, i can't see it, i can hear it ... yeah, it sounds like popcorn popping in the microwave ... uh huh ... that's right, a bird ... no, i don't think it's an endangered bird ... well, it has grey feathers - i think it's a pigeon ... you only rescue endangered birds? well ... maybe this is a famous bird ... maybe it's Orville Wright Redenbacher ... the kids named him Popcorn ... so, how do i get him out of the vent?

now, what the bird didn't hear was the animal control officer on the other end of the phone telling dianne to climb up onto the roof and lower a string down the vent ... he told her that the bird would take hold of the string with his beak and she could slowly pull him out ... he warned her that when the bird saw who was on the other end of the string, he might freak out and fall back down and she would have to start all over again, but it was certainly worth a try ... the animal control officer seemed to be very sincere and eager to help ... dianne is an incredibly gullible woman ... and she has been on the receiving end of countless pranks ... and she has, for the most part, been a pretty good sport about being the butt of jokes ... but she really expected better of the public servant (whose salary is paid by hardworking taxpayers like herself) who answered the phone when she asked for help ... so, if the Westminster Animal Control officer who gave her this line of bee ess ever reads this post ... well ... just know that she thought you were a whole lot unprofessional ... and maybe just a wee bit funny

seriously? yeah ... right ... seriously?!?! ...... no, that's not gonna happen ... uhm ... thanks? ...... the little grey bird pecked a few more times before he died ... and that is why Mrs. Moth was helping dianne take apart the microwave vent...

we were finally able to shove the vent to one side enough to reach the bird, but neither one of us wanted to touch it ... that's what tongs were made for, right? i poked the tongs through the opening and on either side of the bird and then froze ... i could not make myself squish the tongs together ... so Mrs. Moth took them from me and did the deed ... feathers were fluffing around (have i mentioned my pteronophobia?) and the grey bird's feet were poking through (have i mentioned my orinthopodophobia?) as she stuffed his lifeless body into the tripled plastic bags that i was holding to catch him in ... all of this while both of us were standing on step stools with our eyes shut tight ... shiver ... and then she put the vent back together while i disposed of Popcorn ... it was an altogether unpleasant experience that i decided to not blog about till i could find some humor in it ... it is kinda funny ... unless, of course, you look at it from Popcorn's beady eyed point of view

fear makes the wolf bigger than he is
german proverb