You know, it is really nice to wake up … knowing that today I will be on the lookout for something happy. Something to make me laugh. Something to help me heal …

And so after waking up early … seeing the bright blue sky outside and talking to my friend Texas Linda on the phone I decided on a big steaming cup of … one more hours sleep.

After all, I had been up off and on all night … she rationalized.

Flash forward one hour. The sky is now grey. My neck is now stiff from sleeping on it incorrectly. And I am in desperate need of that coffee.

But well rested.

So what to do today? Ah, yes. I can finish painting the front room / porch which will certainly give me much joy upon its completion.

So, dressed in the traditional painting clothes … paint spattered jeans, t-shirt and flip-flops … I carried my steaming hot cup of coffee out to the room to decide which area to paint first.  And came face to beak with …

The Stupidest Bird … Ever.

In my house. On my porch. Staring up at me. Not moving. Staring.

And we all know “A wild bird flying into one’s house is a portent of ill luck, possibly even death.” and “Birds have long thought to be associated with otherworldly powers –  not other planetary but other worldly, as in the spirit world.”

Great … just what I needed in my life right about now. More chaos.

So I flapped my arms around, gesticulating wildly … in hopes that the bird would take the hint and fly off.

Nothing.

Wondering if he was even alive, I noticed his little beady eyes blinking up at me. Then I thought … how DID this little bird get into the house anyway?

Now in order to more fully appreciate this feat of his, you need to understand about the front room. It had, in the not too distant past, been the equivalent of an eight by twenty-two foot litter box. Or at least that’s what it seemed like to me. But that was two cats and eight kittens ago.

And beside it being recently less than appealing, it has thirteen large windows and one door on the front three sides, plus another two windows and door opening on the house side, just for good measure.

And I realized that in my efforts to clean and prepare the windows for the painting, I had taken out two of the lower panes completely until I got around to the reglazing part. Which I haven’t done yet.

So out of all the gazillion windows to choose from, this little guy picked one of the two without glass … and let himself in.

Silly bird. No good food in here.

So in an effort to make it easier for him to make good his escape, I proceeded to open every single one of the windows … and the door … wide open … with the exception of the one he was sitting in front of over in the corner … and the one beside it.

He watched with rapt attention as I did this and I figured he would be gone before long.

Silly me.

After a few more wild gestures and earnest shooing sounds, he flapped his wings wildly and flew up to escape … through the one closed window. Sitting on the ledge stunned, he continued to peck at the window and try in vain to get through the clear glass.

At this point, let me remind the reader that I have, shall we say, less than stellar housekeeping skills here. And had this little fellow shown up, say, one month earlier he would have had no trouble determining which windows were open and which ones were closed … if you catch my drift.

At this point I started to laugh at him. Not with him. At him. To paraphrase a famous movie … Of all the houses at all the times to show up in, and he had to come to this one.

After sitting puzzled for quite some time … and trying repeatedly to get out the closed window … my small feathered friend got a brilliant idea and decided to change his tack.

To the other closed window.

Just to give you an idea of it all … here is my friend the Stupidest Bird Ever trying to escape through the closed, albeit very clean, window.

And here we have some of the other 99 wide open windows and the wide open door.

This guy was better than an old comedy movie … and I almost felt sorry for him.

I am thinking my outright laughter offended him. Because he eventually stopped and glared at me. Well, as much as an exhausted bird can glare.

And he flew the entire length of the room … past 10 wide open huge windows … and flew … not out the gigantic open door … but through the much smaller open window at the right beside it.

And I realized … This really is the Stupidest Bird Ever. This bird is not the Harbinger of Death.

This bird couldn’t find death if his life depended on it.