on protecting and serving
yesterday, i'm walking to the laundromat to do laundry, right? so as i'm walking back to my apartment, I see a dead pigeon on the sidewalk. and it wasn't just dead, it was face down dead. it was smashed in the head dead. it was blood splattering out of whatever orifice it could find in that pigeon's head dead.
and as i approach the dead pigeon and see the coagulating blood and bird brains, i hold my breath as if its about to be snatched up by some soul sucking demon. my nose crinkles, my toes curl up in my shoes. i give the pigeon carcass as wide a berth possible when i pass it, my body practically curving away like a parenthesis as i tiptoe around that pile of bloodied and winged death lying on the gotham sidewalk. and then... it dawned on me...
...this is how avian flu spreads. this is how it will permeate the united states. one pigeon, dead on a sidewalk.
all you'd need is some snot-nosed toddler not being watched by his mom/dad cuz s/he's yappping away on their hands-free device, and the kid, already on 20mg of ritalin a day on account of his ADD, is hovering around the dead pigeon while picking his nose and scratching his butt crack. the kid starts poking it with his finger but mom/dad doesn't notice cuz of the goddamned bluetooth headset thing, then the kid is like, "mommy! mommy! look!!"
and then he presents a finger loaded up with toddler boogers and clotted pigeon blood, and he's shoving it in his mom/dad's face and is promptly shooed away. so he goes back to the
dead pigeon and continues his poking, his prodding.
you get the picture. by the time the toddler and the mom/dad get home, the parent is hacking up a lung and the kid's eyes are all puffy and fucked up with conjunctivitis, except this isn't your run of the mill pink-eye. it's the beginning of the end.
when i went backto the laundromat, i noticed the pigeon was now residing in the gutter. which made me think... if there was a cop around, would it be the cop's responsibility to remove the dead pigeon out of the way of pedestrians?
and as i approach the dead pigeon and see the coagulating blood and bird brains, i hold my breath as if its about to be snatched up by some soul sucking demon. my nose crinkles, my toes curl up in my shoes. i give the pigeon carcass as wide a berth possible when i pass it, my body practically curving away like a parenthesis as i tiptoe around that pile of bloodied and winged death lying on the gotham sidewalk. and then... it dawned on me...
...this is how avian flu spreads. this is how it will permeate the united states. one pigeon, dead on a sidewalk.
all you'd need is some snot-nosed toddler not being watched by his mom/dad cuz s/he's yappping away on their hands-free device, and the kid, already on 20mg of ritalin a day on account of his ADD, is hovering around the dead pigeon while picking his nose and scratching his butt crack. the kid starts poking it with his finger but mom/dad doesn't notice cuz of the goddamned bluetooth headset thing, then the kid is like, "mommy! mommy! look!!"
and then he presents a finger loaded up with toddler boogers and clotted pigeon blood, and he's shoving it in his mom/dad's face and is promptly shooed away. so he goes back to the
dead pigeon and continues his poking, his prodding.
you get the picture. by the time the toddler and the mom/dad get home, the parent is hacking up a lung and the kid's eyes are all puffy and fucked up with conjunctivitis, except this isn't your run of the mill pink-eye. it's the beginning of the end.
when i went backto the laundromat, i noticed the pigeon was now residing in the gutter. which made me think... if there was a cop around, would it be the cop's responsibility to remove the dead pigeon out of the way of pedestrians?
posted by the purveyor at
7:34 PM
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