Lately, on our walks, Stella has taken to picking up feathers in her mouth. I think it's the consolation prize. She can't have a crow but she can pretend she just polished one off. Oops Stel, you just missed a bit there; you've got a bit of feather stuck to your lip. And she'll blush and brush it away and lament the fact that crows are so difficult to eat without making a mess. Anyway, she spots a feather and snaps it up and I then have to pry her jaws open to get it out. I've gotten very good at extracting feathers from her maw with little to no squeamishness. This is progress. I'm not a fan of germs and bird feathers are definitely something I'd classify as germ-ridden.
So tonight we're walking home from the dog park and she nabs a feather. This is routine by now so I bend down and grab it out of her mouth. Except that when I touch it, it feels a bit weird. A bit more solid than your average feather. So I take a closer look and realize that it's a feather WITH A BIT OF WING STILL ATTACHED. Some poor crow met his (or her) untimely demise and all that was left was this bit of wing with one lonely feather attached. That I'm now holding in my hand. It felt like slow motion as I drop the pile o'germs and utter "effing eff!" louder than I should have in a public park.
Things that have been washed / bathed / laundered / disinfected with rubbing alcohol since I got home:
- my hands (eleventy million times ... in hot enough water that they are now bright red and sore)
- Stella (because she had DEAD BIRD BITS IN HER MOUTH)
- my hoodie (because I had to touch it to get my keys out of the pocket and my hands were contaminated with DEAD BIRD BITS)
- my keys (I interrupted Shawn's band practice to enquire as to whether or not my key fobs would continue to work after being submerged in water. (It was a fancy practice too, at a real rehearsal studio and everything.) After ascertaining that I hadn't already submerged them in water, that I was asking if I could submerge them in water, he told me to stop being a nutbar and hung up on me. Musicians - moody bitches, right?) (My keys got the rub-down with rubbing alcohol.)
- my door knob
Would it be strange of me to go disinfect the buttons in the elevator? I'm not going to lie, there's a good possibility that I will be disinfecting my keyboard with rubbing alcohol once I finish typing. Right after I wash my hands again.
I kid you not, the newf had to yank a dead bird leg out of Calvin's mouth the other morning. Instead of disinfecting, he shoved the puppy back on the bed to lick my face.
ReplyDeleteI, in turn, have tasted dead bird foot. For that, I am very sorry.
EWWWW...BIRD BITS!!
ReplyDeleteI would have done exactly what you did.
(I want to hear more about the fancy practice. Is Shawn a rock star?)
Guh-ross!!! Isn't Shawn the one who told you to pee in the bathtub? I guess I'm not surprised that he didn't understand the bird-guts pain.
ReplyDeleteYou need to post some clips of Shawn's band on your blog! Is he a musician for a living? Or for fun?
SoMi and I like to go on squirrel and rabbit hunts. Not surprisingly, our prey always gets away. Sometimes, SoMi eats rabbit poop as her own consolation prize. I'm not really sure what I'd do if a rabbit was ever attached to that poop.
ReplyDeleteI'm with your dog: I hate crows.
ReplyDeleteAt my old office, there was one that saw itself in the reflection of the glass of my window, and decided to attack said reflection...all day long.
If I could have gotten the window open, I would have waited patiently with a tennis racket ready to smack that thing out of the sky. Stupid birds.
Eurgh. Poor crow. Poor Stella. And poor Stella's owner. Your plan to disinfect almost everything you've touched or breathed on reminds me of the time I unfortunately managed to achieve a bad case of headlice (strongly suspect this was caught during one of my heavily congested/crowded commutes on the dingy old London Underground) and after successfully de-lousing my head, then started to panic about all the possible places my head/hair had possibly rested on or touched (in case a little critter had decided to make a nest there instead of in my locks ...)... my brother ended up catching me feverishly combing out one of my furry coat collars with a nit-comb and when all he could get out of me by way of explanation was a rather shakey L-l-lice!!! he decided to leave me alone until I'd finished my cleaning purge!
ReplyDeleteThat was awful, but also funny. I have to admit I cracked up a little a the thought of you prying a bird wing out of Stella's mouth. Ick...
ReplyDeletehaaaaa oh gross. i'm actually too lazy to be a germophobe. like, i get all grossed out when i touch something like a dead bird, but it's just waaay too much effort to actually go and disinfect stuff. so i shrug and figure it's all upping my resistance to germs.
ReplyDeleteGood times.
ReplyDeleteI would be using alcohol swabs and Clorox wipes all over the damn place if that happened to me.
ReplyDeleteLove,
A Fellow Germ Freak
P.S. After wiping down the key fob I'd also spray it with Lysol.
b's favorite thing in the worl is chasing after birds, and chipmunks. i try and tell him that he can't fly dumbass, so he'll never get the birds, but alas, he still tries to dislocate my shoulder and get them.
ReplyDeleteone time though, he brought me a present of a dead chipmunk. he was SO proud of himself. he came bounding up to me, dead chipmunk in his mouth, floppping all about, and i swear to god that damn dog was smiling. i. lost. it.
also? totes not related but i'm planning a wedding in vancouver aug 9th and will be there on thursday... :)