Where's Tippi Hedren When You Need Her?

When we moved into our apartment last summer, we began to notice odd sounds coming from outside our windows at all hours of the day. An incessant chirping noise could be heard in the early rising of the morning, the darkest depths of night, and anytime in between. At first it was like, "oh listen to the sounds of nature at work." Oh it totally wasn't for my roommate and I couldn't give a rat's ass about nature, but at first the noise was tolerable. Then we discovered the nest that was resting precariously on our front porch. I guess they figured that those freaky giant creatures can make their homes in entirely wooden structures, why can't we? I don't why since there are plenty of trees just outside our building, but what can you do? Anyways, vague tolerance soon turned into sheer annoyance. A loud cacophony always greeted me at the most inopportune moments. Trying to go to sleep? Trying to do homework? HaHa, think again sucker. Those stupid birds really made me work and concentrate on whatever it is I wanted to do, and being lazy I naturally resented that.

I know some of you out there are thinking, why not just get rid of the nest? It's a perfectly valid question, but I had heard somewhere a long time ago that if a mother bird can sense a human smell emitting from her nest, then she won't ever go back to it and her babies will starve to death. Now I'm just fine with the former result, but I'm no baby killer. Maybe it's because I read Are You My Mother? too many times as a child, but I don't want that kind of guilt (or the ghost of Dr. Seuss) weighing on my conscience. So we decided to wait them out, and remove the nest after they flew south for the winter. Yes this would leave them homeless, but we figured it was time for them to find their own damn house, and if that didn't work maybe Habitat for Birdkind would help build them a home that would naturally be filmed for a touching reality show aimed at the feathered set.

The trouble is, as I mentioned before, I'm lazy. The phrase "out of sight, out of mind" came into play and we forgot all about the sad little pile of sticks that remained on our balcony. That is, we forgot until a few weeks ago when the first few chirps could be heard, intruding on the quiet peaceful air. We had missed our very large window of opportunity and are now doomed to another whole summer of us against the birds. I hope that by the end of the summer the shrieking will not have sent me over the edge, rendering me not responsible for my own actions. Otherwise those baby birds just might have to learn to find their own damn food.