My car is not fancy.
It’s old, rusting in spots.
It doesn’t have modern tech gadgets and GPS screens, or heated seats for cold mornings, or effective air conditioning for hot ones, but it has a style all of its own. Personality, if you will.
My colleague aptly christened my Matrix “Keanu.” The name stuck. Handsome. Reliable. Humble. Fun. And while I don’t have much in the way of fussy vanity-inspired pride for my car, I don’t want it to look like crap.
Yet, it does.
Our new home has a lovely large maple tree on the front lawn. It has a solid strong trunk and long limbs, creating a canopy over the driveway and front garden. I’ve enjoyed seeing the buds in April grow and unravel into big green leaves in May. It’s a daily reminder of the simple beauty of a tree (yes, I have hugged it).
It’s also a popular hangout for the beautiful birds in the neighbourhood. I have enjoyed watching them gather for morning chats, back when the tree was naked in the early spring. Now, they are harder to spot in the thick of the leaves. But I know they are there. Oh boy, do I.
The birds have turned my handsome hatchback into a bombing target. Keanu is now the public toilet for a flock of birds conducting air strikes on my sweet ride. And they are accurate in their shots too. It’s like they know the driver’s side window, the windshield and dead centre of the sunroof are key spots to drop that weird but plentiful mix of part-liquid, part-coagulated goo all over my vehicle. Keanu looks like a Jackson Pollock painting on wheels.
While I love birds, I am now considering them to be avian adversaries. I think they know it. I think they gather in the camouflage comfort of the maple leaves just to watch the fresh horror I express vocally each morning when I leave my home for work.
I can hear them chattering away above me, judging my awkward balancing act of carrying my water bottle, purse, backpack and lunch pail (yes, I am basically a child and yes, it has butterflies on it), fumbling with my keys to lock the house and then unlock the car (no, I don’t have a fancy fob thing), and of course, I’m running late. Finally, I arrive at the driver’s side door to find an explosion of mucky bird droppings everywhere.
Oh, how they chirp me, from their high and mighty perches.
They must have really enjoyed that one time when I didn’t see the massive plop of excrement that cascaded down the driver’s side window, until I made the mistake of rolling down my window, which thus allowed the weighted portion of the dropping to slid into my car and dribble down the interior door in the folds of the window’s closing button. Great. Just great.
Is it wrong that my first thought wasn’t “Oh sh–t”, but rather, “What on God’s Earth are we feeding these birds these days? That couldn’t have come out of a chickadee, I’m sure of it.”
Needless to say, I am saving all my coins for the spray car wash. I’m going to be spending a lot of time there this summer.
Seriously though, what are these birds eating?
Never mind.
