Last weekend I was sitting in the drive thru of a fast food restaurant (attempting to salvage our weekend after our son hated the South American food we had for lunch) when across the parking lot I noticed a hurt pigeon. One of its wings was stretched out at a weird angle like it was broken and it seemed to be in distress. Before I knew what was happening, I had my hand on my seat belt and was screaming to my husband, “Do I need to go help that bird?!”
I should probably go ahead and mention at this point that I have zero experience with birds – wounded or otherwise. I have never owned a bird, I have never known a friend with a bird, I have rarely even noticed birds on an individual basis, my brain usually just sees “birds” as a collective. I could be in a room full of birds and probably not really notice any of them individually unless they were specifically pointed out to me. Also, contrary to my brain’s promptings at that moment, I do not have a degree in veterinary medicine. I am an English and Communications major. If something needs to be talked at or written about, I’m your girl, but damaged birds are out of my depth.
Fortunately, the bird got up and flew away before I was able to jump out the car and run across the parking lot to… what? What exactly was my plan? Was I going to run over there and just pick up that parking lot bird? Was I going to bring it back to my car? Where was I going to take it? How *exactly* was I going to help it?
I can’t answer any of those questions. I don’t know what was going on, but I do know that if I attempted to pick up a wild pigeon I ran a pretty good chance of getting my face pecked off and/or catching some weird bird disease.
So, while I’m glad that the bird was okay and my face is intact, I almost *almost* wish that the bird hadn’t gotten up and that I had run over there so that I could know what my plan was. Clearly, some part of my brain had a plan, right? I love animals and if I were to encounter an injured one, I would definitely make sure it received help, but what on earth did I think I was personally going to do for that pigeon?
All I do know is that when the bird flew away seemingly unharmed, I felt a tremendous sense of relief. I turned to my husband to tell him the good news about the pigeon and he was staring at me like I was insane.
“What did you think you were going to go do?” he asked me.
“I… I honestly don’t know.”
AND I STILL DON’T.
I’ve been thinking about the whole incident for days and I’m no closer to understanding what happened or why I felt so connected to that one random parking lot bird. I’m proud of the fact that I was concerned about the well-being of a living creature and that I modeled that concern in front of my son… but I’m a bit concerned about what’s going on upstairs. If I turn into a crazy bird lady, send help.
P.S. This is even more confusing because I don’t have a great history with birds.
