Thursday, October 11, 2007

Hitchcock's Birds ain't got Nuttin' on my Birds

We've all been grossed out at one point or another. The guy on the subway who coughs without covering his mouth or the one who wipes his nose with his hand and then grabs the same rail you're clinging to for dear life. People who only rinse in the bathrooms, people who don't wash at all, those same people touching the door handles that you touch. Chewing of pens. The hacking up of phlegm and spitting onto public streets where it gets on my shoes and I bring it back to my house. Oh dear....I think I just threw up a little in my mouth so now I'm going to stop. You get the picture.

Generally speaking I'm opposed to anything antibacterial. This may seem in conflict with my previous rant about people and their germs. If I were a real anti-antibacterial woman I would belly up to the dirty people and relish the opportunity to strengthen my immune system. I just can't do it, I'm too grossed out. So while I don't go out of my way to come into contact with bacteria and viruses, I also don't try to scrub every last bit away.

This is actually harder than it sounds. Have you ever tried to find non anti-bacterial hand soap? There's all of one option in the liquid hand soap variety. Every single cleaning product has started throwing in a little antibacterial somethin', somethin' for good measure. Another good reason to go natural. My husband carries those little antibacterial disinfectants with him when we travel. It must be a doctor thing - something about hospital germs and carrying illness from one patient to the next. As much as I like to make fun of him for this peculiar habit, it has come in handy more than once. As a result of incidents like those listed below I've relaxed the ban while traveling.

No soap in the airplane bathroom? No problem!
Big fat dude next to you just sneezed all over himself and then proceeded to touch everything around you? No problem!
A scary bum spits a half eaten gummy bear in your hair on the street in Chicago and then runs after you and throws her dirty shoe at you? No problem! (100% true, you just can't make this stuff up)

So now you understand that I'm sort of a germ-a-phobe at war with myself. My latest activity on the home front is to wage war against my neighbor two floors up. Not necessarily the person per se, but their bird feeders. This person has a collection of illegal (per our apartment bylaws) feeders that swing wildly from their illegal window boxes. For the life of me I can't figure out what pleasure they even derive from these since they hang below the balcony. We're now knee deep in discarded seeds and fallen feed on our balcony. As a result we now have a bird party on our balcony every day. The bird crap on our railing is threatening to take over and it's starting to pile up on the cement floor as well.

Hey! Don't let me hear any crying! These aren't cute little song birds, they're huge flying rat like pigeons. It's a damn infestation!

So my husband, being the helpful person that he is, happened to mention a while back all the nasty illnesses you can get from pigeon feces. I now imagine dried poop particles flaking off and flying into my nose, leaving me for dead. Think I'm kidding? Try one of these beauties on for size:

Cryptococcosis - causes acne like ulcers on the skin (bad rash? I think NOT)
Histoplasmosis - flu like symptoms, fever, death and in some cases blindness (at least 2 out of 4 don't cause permanent damage - right?)
Toxoplasmosis - central nervous system damage

and my personal favorite.....

Ornithosis - fever, chills, fatigue, a rash and lung problems such as shortness of breath and a cough. It can also lead to rales, which are small clicking, bubbling sounds coming from a portion of the lung.

Clicking sounds from a portion of my lung? Are we living in a 3rd world country?? Next thing you know the kids in the building will be kicking around a dead chicken in the courtyard and we'll all die from Bird Flu.

I have no idea who lives two floors up. With my luck it's probably an old woman whose only joy in life is waiting for the birds every day. You know what? I don't care. I can live with stealing her joy, I can't deal with the birds. Curiously though, I'm starting to sense that the birds have started exacting their revenge. Today as I was walking home from work, a bird took a big crap on me and missed my head by about 1/2 an inch. It landed squarely on my scarf, dangerously close to my mouth. Perhaps that was just a warning strike.

"Hey lady, there's more where that came from, back off the old broad who feeds us!"

All I have to say is, "BRING IT ON you diseased flying rats". I'm bigger and I can kick you with my impossibly pointy not-so-practical shoes.

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