Birds

Have you seen these new commercials for "Madagascar 2 -- Mr. T's Revenge", or whatever it's called? I think it's a product tie-in for some fast food joint, but I haven't paid enough attention to know for sure. All I've noticed is that some kind of monkey-thing flings a penguin off a cliff, thinking it's a homing pigeon. And while cluelessly tossing flightless critters is always good for a laugh, the clip still doesn't make me want to see the movie.

I've tried several times to watch the original "Madagascar" movie, and just can't get through it. For some reason, I think it's kinda creepy. And perhaps that feeling, along with seeing that trailer so many times, is what sparked the weird dream I had last night. I don't remember the exact details, but it had something to do with sending carrier pigeons to attack the Energizer bunny hot air balloon, while the Indians from F-Troop described it all.

Anyway, you may be familiar with my general feelings toward our fine feathered friends, so you can probably guess how I feel about pigeons, even if you don't know about the neighbors I had during my final years in the suburban portion of Wichita known as Westlink.

My younger neighbor, Rod Nucholls, was practicing to become a pro golfer, so he was always chipping and putting golf balls around the yard. I had no problem with that, and in fact was quite pleased to learn that later he did indeed become a club pro, and maybe even went on tour. But his older brother, Rick...well, Rick raised pigeons.

He had a large chicken-wire cage in the back yard, right at the spot where we used to hit home runs over the Dotzour's fence. I'd estimate that there were about two dozen of the filthy creatures cooing and bobbing their heads and crapping all over everything. The smell was horrid, the avian vocalizations were unceasing, and there were feathers everywhere. Why would anyone want to spend so much time and money just to keep a cageful of birds you couldn't even eat?

According to Rick, their appeal was in their uncanny sense of direction. You could take any one of his birds hundreds of miles away from Wichita, and when you released it, it would fly unerringly home to this very cage. (Well, I don't really know about the "unerringly" part. They may have had to stop for directions multiple times for all I know...but at least they eventually showed up.)

OK, Rick, let's see if I got this straight -- you have this ugly, filthy, noisy winged rat that continually poops where it stands, and even if you take it to another state, it returns to your very own backyard, where it immediately poops again. And this is a good thing? Forgive me, pal, but I can't quite grasp the concept.

Oh well, at least the stinking pigeons didn't keep me up at night. But several years later, I had a neighbor whose bird certainly did. It was a peacock, and it had the nasty habit of shreiking like a banshee every morning somewhere between 2am and 4am. Now, I am an early riser, I admit -- but even if I did want to wake up at 2:00, I'd prefer to be woken with something gentler...say some 100-decibel Ozzy Osbourne, or maybe fingernails on a chalkboard. There's something bone-chilling about the piercing wail of the peacock. Beautiful plumage, yes, but their vocal cords should be classified as weapons of mass destruction.

Anyway, I don't know what any of this has to do with the dream I had, but I guess there's one conclusion that's inescapably clear: If you're going to have a bird for a pet, I'd recommend choosing a penguin.