Bird Invasion? Look To The Butt.

The other night I barely slept. I’m talking like a maximum of 3 non-consecutive hours of sleep. I tossed. I turned. I went to the bathroom and played on my phone ten million times. It was awful. At the time, I had no idea why I was so restless. Now I know. I had sensed The Return Of The Birds.

In my condo, we once had a bird invasion. These jerks were not messing around. A mama bird somehow got into the vents, laid eggs, and hatched a nest full of baby birds IN MY BATHROOM CEILING. Not even kidding. How they flew (no pun intended) under the radar for so long I don’t know. But they did. And the night before we were to fly across country for a wedding, we had to stay up late purging them from the house. It was terrible. When we opened up the bathroom light to get them out, an endless shower of baby bird poop rained down upon us. We cleaned up, put up vent cages, and felt assured we’d never to deal with them again. And then we moved, leaving the scene of the infestation behind.

Or so we thought.

We learned from the condo adventure and put up vent cages at the new house before we even finished moving in. “At last,” The Husband and I said to ourselves, “we are free from the pooping squad.”

Fast forward to the sleepless night. I managed to stumble through the day, looking forward to when I could go to bed early, especially since I was once again going out of town the following morning.

Then we heard it. The unmistakable sound of a demonic winged poop ninja fluttering around in the walls.

“That’s impossible,” I said to The Husband. “It can’t be!”

He went up and searched. “It is. Somehow they got in.”

So we went outside to try and figure this out. Turns out there was a teeny tiny vent waaaaaaaaay up high almost to the roof that we missed. It had a small cover on it, but it had blown away in the tornado we had two nights earlier. Our winged poop demon had gone in seeking refuge and got stuck in the dryer tube linking the machine to the wall.

“Jerk!” I yelled at the bird. “I’ve got stuff in the washer! If you poop on any of my laundry so help me I will-”

“You can finish it later,” The Husband said as he unplugged the machine. “Let’s get this sucker outta here.”

So at first he tried to trap it in the dryer tube and shake it out on the yard. The bird thrashed and chirped like it was possessed. I stayed downstairs to monitor the situation from a safe distance (read — I didn’t want to be anywhere near that bird if it escaped the tube and went flying through the house). I also wanted to keep an eye on The Cat.

While The Husband was in the laundry room and the bird was thrashing in the tube, The Cat’s eyes were fixated on the door. I can only imagine that in her furry little head she was thinking “let me at it! I’ve trained for this by killing all my toy mice. I have prepared for this moment! LET ME IN THERE!”

But then she’d take a break from staring at the door and go running through the house at top speed. Perhaps this was part of the training. Maybe my little seven pound Furry Killing Machine has so much Pent Up Murderous Rage from not being allowed outside to kill things that she can only express herself by charging dramatically through the house and sometimes attacking the curtains. Whatever the reason, she was stampeding up and down the stairs, shouting her battle cry, and only occasionally being distracted by the sudden instinct to lick herself. Gotta look good going into battle, you know.

Eventually The Husband gave up on the trapping it in the dryer tube plan and decided to take a new approach. He went to the store and got another vent cage. He planned to put it on, then send me to turn on the dryer. He would then lift the flap of the vent cage to let the bird out, then seal it back up again so no more birds can come in. To accomplish this plan, he needed to get up on A Very Tall Ladder. I was asked to hold the base of said ladder.

So I dragged my tired self outside, staggering around like a drunk, and held said ladder. It was incredibly stressful. I prefer to be blissfully ignorant of when my husband is up on a tall ladder, and now here I was having to watch. I wanted to keep my head down so I wouldn’t have to see him up there and worry, but I also couldn’t take my eyes off him because I wanted to make sure he was safe.

“I’m gonna throw up!” I shouted up at The Husband.

“HUH?!? Why?!” he shouted back.

“Because I’m nervous for you and it makes me sick!” I said. My tired sleepwalking plus my upset tummy probably convinced my neighbors that I was smashed. But I tried not to think about it. I needed distraction. I stared up at my husband and noticed that I was getting a nice view of his butt. And seeing him do home improvement projects is really, really attractive.

“This could work,” I thought. “I can stop myself from throwing up if I just focus on his butt. That’s it, Amy! LOOK AT THAT BUTT!”

“I’m staring at your butt!” I shouted up the ladder, because my sleep deprivation had totally destroyed my mind to mouth filter. “You’re really hot!” I added.

“Whatever works, honey,” he said.

Thankfully soon it was time to flush out the bird. He whipped out his cell phone so he could let me know when the bird was out and I could shut off the dryer. I felt a bit like an action movie star as I cautiously made my way to the danger zone being coached by The Husband on speakerphone.

“You can do this,” he said. I nervously pushed the button.

“The dryer’s on!” I shouted, forgetting I was no longer outside.

And shortly thereafter an explosion of dryer lint and fluttering wings came rushing out the vent. The Husband climbed down, cleaned up the lint, and packed up the ladder.

“It’s over,” we both said with a sigh of relief. The Cat was slightly disappointed she didn’t get to help, but soon found an enemy fly that needed hunting. And by hunting I mean “chattering at it while swatting at the blinds” because that’s the extent of her hunting abilities.

The moral of the story, my friends, is to make sure you put up vent cages around your house if you haven’t already. Get a good night’s sleep before battling demonic poop ninjas. And always, ALWAYS focus on the butt.