Surprise Animals

Two episodes the last week have provided conclusive proof that I’m a sissy. Several days ago, I entered my bathroom. My toiletries bag sits on the window ledge, and I noticed a bit of a white streak on the side of it, punctuated by a little dark spot next to it on the ledge. Looking closer, I suspected it was bird poo. “How on earth could bird poo have gotten through this screen?” I thought to myself as I inspected the screen for holes. “Hm, it’s a mystery…I guess I’ll clean it up.” I pulled some paper towel from a roll, went to the sink for a dab of water, and began to wipe the dry bird poo off the ledge and off my bag. “You know, maybe a bird was in the house during the day,” I thought to myself, “Boy I wonder when…and how they got the bird-“ *Fwap-fwap-fwap-fwap-fwap!* the beating of wings exploded seemingly right behind my head as an image of a sharp-beaked bird pecking at my luscious Western ear popped into my head. Terrified, I ducked, covered my head with my hands, and let loose with a “Yuuuuueeeeeyeeeaaaahhhhhh!!!!” as I darted passed the door and pulled it closed behind me. In the relative safety of the hallway, I began to process the fleeting vision of my horrible wing-ed predator. Faced with this challenge of man against beast…I went and got A. Pointing up toward the second floor, saying “bird,” and interlocking my thumbs to make a bird shape (complete with wing-flapping hand action) didn’t seem to get the story across, so I invited A to come upstairs with me. From a safe distance, I directed him to the door, sure of the violent fate awaiting him inside. A turned the latch and pushed the door open—it offered less resistance than he anticipated and it jerked open before he regained control of it. My curious eyes went straight to the area above the shower where the beast had silently, patiently stalked me as I so innocently put together the clues he had pooped me. There, perched on the shower curtain rod was a small, white-and-grey pigeon (please understand nearly all birds are pigeons to me). A, turned and gave me his signature less-than-a-full-head-of-teeth smile before easing inside and closing the door behind him. Immediately, he came back out with the bird in his hand (worth two in the bush, right?), and walked over to me cowering in the doorway of my bedroom. A smiled, showing me the bird while petting or poking it with his other hand. He giggled and made some bird noises before heading outside to unleash the beast on other unsuspecting pansies. I weathered the ride down from my adrenaline high by cleaning up the rest of the bird poo in my bathroom, laughing at myself for putting two and two together so slowly. It reminded me of some joke a travel writer told about Iowans—that telling a joke to an Iowan was like watching turtles in a race or something to that effect… Well, then tonight there was another episode, securing my sally-boy reputation around the Pragma guest house. I was in the kitchen getting ready to heat up our dinner. I was running water on a pan when I heard the plastic bread bag rustle. Initially, I though that maybe it just shifted like plastic bags will sometimes do. But then it happened again and I looked around the back of the chair the bag was on to see that a dark mouse was inside the bag, snacking on the bread. Well, he’s in the bag, I’ll just grab the top of it and he’s trapped, I thought to myself. Then I thought, after blastocystis hominis and dengue fever, rabies I don’t need. Turning back to the sink, I looked around for some implement I could use. If I could just hook one of the loops at the top of the plastic bag, I’d have him. The best I could do was a spoon. Then in the distance I heard the outside door—one of the guards was coming in. If the mouse spooked, he might jump out of the bag and start trying to gnaw on my ankles. I had to act. Too late—W walked through the door of the kitchen and was immediately confronted with me signaling him to stop and be quiet with a finger to my mouth and my flattened palm. Turning back to face the chair with what I now realized was a really pretty short spoon, I measured up the jab I’d have to make at the loop. After considering it for a moment, I made my move and managed to pull up on the loop, trapping the mouse inside the bag. Then I put the spoon through more securely and picked up the bag, displaying my success to W and thinking, “Now THAT’S how you trap a mouse in a bag it voluntarily walked into.” Nonchalant, W wrapped his hands around the top of the bag. I motioned with an air-sweeping hand gesture that it should all be thrown out. “Nay, *something more in Dari I didn’t understand*,” W said and pointed at himself. “Nay” is no, so I assumed he meant that instead of tossing it, he and the guards would eat the mouse bread. “OK…” I said, my eyebrows raised at how these guys live on the edge. Later I heard Mary come down, start laughing, and then came to find me. “Boy, you just keep having all these surprise animal stories!” “You got the story already?” I said, wondering how W could have told her in Dari and briefly thinking about how “Dr. Dolittle” with Eddie Murphy was on cable the other night. “I went in the kitchen and W was laughing. Then he said, ‘Jon. Small. Mouse.’” A squealed about the pigeon, I’m sure of it! So now the big, bad American has a big wussy reputation at home… "I don't like surprise animals," Mary reassured me. Here’s some footage of the green KU campus and my interrogation of a few students: