Big Bird Scare

I got home from eating dinner last week and was stunned when I saw a big bird.

Nope. Not this kind of big bird.




This kind.

That's right. To my horror, I saw an owl lying in wait in the bushes directly in front of my windshield, literally two feet in front of my car. It was an owl with a beak sharp as a T-rex talon. Its demonic yellow eyes were piercing through my very soul even through the dark of the 8:00 night.

To be fair I didn't ACTUALLY see the eyes. They were closed. I figured the direct beam of my headlights was causing him to camouflage himself by shutting his beady little bird peepers. Well, this killer wasn't fooling me.

In the bushes I could make out his pointy little tail and his soldier-like posture. I knew this owl was ready to strike, ready to plunge towards me the moment I stepped out of the steely gray protection of my Saab. I had a brief daymare of this owl making a beeline for my forehead, knocking me over in one fell swoop, and pecking my eyes out.

Of course, I did the one thing I always do in a crisis.

I called my mom.

"THERE'S A HUGE OWL IN FRONT OF MY CAR!!!!" I squealed at a high enough pitch for only the local dogs to hear.

"Honey, it's not going to hurt you," my mom said, annoyingly rationally.

"MOM!" I wailed. "It's going to peck my eyeballs out and eat them for dinner! I'M GOING TO GO BLIND!"

"Aww honey, that's okay. I can get you a seeing eye dog," she said, "But I guess that wouldn't be good because you don't like dogs."

"THIS IS NOT FUNNY! I AM FREAKING OUT!" I cried.

"Well," my mom sighed. "Flash your lights or something. See if it flies away."

I did.

Nothing changed.

The killer just sat there, still as one of those soldiers in London that you can spit on and they won't move. The ones with the dumb black helmets that look like Marge Simpson's hair.

"Honk your horn then," mom suggested.

I did. Several times. The dern owl didn't fluff a feather.

"Just go on in...I'll stay on the phone with you," said my mom patiently.

"No!! I'm not getting out of the car NOW! Not after I honked my HORN at him!!! Now he's DEFINITELY going to peck my eyes out!!!" I shrieked loudly. "Forget it!! I'm moving my car!!!"

I warily pulled out, then shook myself out of my bird-induced hysteria and pulled back in. "I'm getting out!" I cried to my mom. "I'll call you back as soon as I'm in the door!"

I hung up. Gathered the vestiges of my waning courage. Opened the door of my car a tiny crack.

Suddenly the motion detector light on the side of my building came on.

I craned my neck to look closer at my feathered killer.

I called my mom back and said all in one sentence:

"THE LIGHT JUST CAME ON IT'S A COUPLE OF DEAD LEAVES HANGING THERE BYE!"

Now I know:
I may need to check into getting contacts. Or avian-aversion therapy.