bird’s head revisited
june 2007
bad things happen when i order pizza. i know this.
there was the time the pizza delivery man’s visit coincided EXACTLY with me finding faeces of unknown origin in our porch. but that didn’t creep me out as much as the occasion i’m going to tell you about now, which is not for the delicate or the bird-loving among you. (sorry!)
our oldest cat rumpleteaser (rest in peace) went through a phase a couple of years ago of killing a bird every few weeks, and bringing us the remains – always on a thursday. actually we think he sometimes just located a dead bird and arranged it for our viewing pleasure but either way, the effect was the same:
vile, disturbing, deathly.
so, on this particular day… he ups the ante and brings home not just a dead bird, but a dead and dismembered bird in several pieces, most prominent of which is the head, in our porch, with that thick pink veiny thing (technical term alert!) that once attached the head to its birdy body clearly visible. yeurch.
my mum, thankfully, moved the remains. (another reason i couldn’t be a mother. i don’t want to be the person who does these things).
that was the end of that, right?
uh-uh. you’re forgetting i ordered a pizza about eight hours later…
i open the door to let the cats in again about ten minutes before the pizza delivery man is due, and i see… the bird head is back. right in the middle of the path, clearly visible. i can NOT subject the pizza man to this. i already am the poo girl.
i will not be the bird head poo girl.
so i bravely take the miniature spade that my mum uses for this type of task (is it weird we had a special implement to hand?) and i walk onto the path and… shudder for a few minutes. i keep mentally counting to three, steeling myself and doing absolutely nothing whilst screaming on the inside.
then finally, gingerly, scared by bird head poo girl thoughts (the headlines!) i tentatively try to scoop up the head without looking at it but it won’t move. i’m cringing, heaving, and shuddering. i flick the head slightly harder. it moves a centimetre. i flick again. another centimetre. one more time, harder. it flies in an enormous arc and lands close to my left foot, but in the flowerbed just next to the path. good enough.
shortly after, the pizza man arrives with a steaming hot box of cheese and pepperoni. yum.
shame i’ll never eat again.
