Thursday, July 13

So THAT is how they die

A question I have often asked myself is, 'Self, how do birds get hit by cars?' After all, they fly. Certainly they can get out of the way. The question has remained unanswered until this morning when two birds, having the Time Of Their Lives (near a cemetery, no less), met their doom thanks to my car. They were flying downward and SMACK, hit the side of my car. My heart sank as I heard it, saw it, and watched in my rearview mirror as one of the birds flapped around on the road, quite injured and near death. Should I stop and and help it? No, Alicia, you know that will do no good. Just like when you were house-sitting one summer and spotted an injured bird on the road while out on a walk. For some reason, you (yes, you were an adult at this time) felt it necessary to bring the bird back to the house-that-wasn't-even-yours and try to feed it water with a plastic syringe to make it better. Not only did you do that, but you tried to sanitize the syringe afterwards by boiling it in water on the stove. Not Only That, but you also forgot about the boiling syringe and let the water boil off and as a result, the syring melted and cooked to the pan. In the end, you had to place the still-living tiny bird back outside, far away from its mother, in the woods, to die. No, you do not want to try to help this newly injured bird.

And so I drove away, sadly, remembering how God says, "Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will." (Matthew 10:29 ) Maybe that bird was a sparrow. I should go find out. Then I can see if it's ok and perhaps........nah. Let it be.


Another question that is not answered is Why do birds walk across the road? Why do they not fly? It's a simple humor for me to witness a bird walking across the road. Unfortunately, I do not have any life lessons to apply to this question. Yet.

Lastly, a brand new question from this morning's oh-so-eventful-11- minute-drive-to-work is, How fast do chipmunks run? I saw one run very fast across the road this morning and thought it ran as fast, if not faster, than me. But! this can be answered with yahoo (preferred by me over google). Well, the first 10 results yield nothing related to what I'm looking for. Have they really never been clocked? Maybe a policeman has a blog somewhere, haha. I will have to do some more searching.


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great story, Alicia! I don't remember the other story that involved using a syringe to help the other little bird. If I am ever stopped by a state trooper for speeding, I will try to remember to ask if he or any fellow officers ever clocked a chipmunk running across a road. Might be kind of fun for them to try if traffic is light.

Dad

Anonymous said...

GOOF!!!!!!! :D

Anonymous said...

Funny bird story and good to know humans aren't the only ones to do silly things. And don't you owe me a replacement pot? I'll take an All Clad any size. Your story reminds me of a quote which I've been wanting to share somewhere: we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm. Auntie Chris

P.D.N. said...

You should hear the THUD and see the mess when a turkey hits the side of a truck going 70mph.

I once "smuggled" a dead bird into Canada . I had hit it on the way up and it was stuck in the grill of my car. My co-worker who went up with me (actually my boss) put on a welding glove and pulled what was left out. YUCK!

Anonymous said...

Maybe birds walk across sometimes because their wings get tired.