When I first moved to New York City, my mom was kinda nervous. After all, it’s a big scary city and I’m, well, Bret. I’m a big wussy wuss boy raised in the comfortable confines of suburban Connecticut. But I wasn’t scared moving to New York even when Scott explained to me the exciting new definition for the word ‘project’ and why it isn’t necessarily a good thing that we happen to be living next to one.
And for a couple of weeks I cavorted around the city in my merry way, happily oblivious of a dangerous threat that was about to rear its small, feathered head.
I am deathly afraid of having a pigeon fly into me. Deathly afraid. They’re completely ridiculous. They take off and land with no acknowledgement of the large, lumbering human beings all around them. I could just see myself talking to some pretty girl and getting all excited because that’s never happened before and suddenly WHAP-there’s a pigeon stuck in my cheek. Not cool.
So for a day or so I thought that getting hit by a pigeon was my biggest fear. However, I realized that that particular fear is a close second to an even greater fear: looking like the guy who’s afraid of getting hit by a pigeon. I’m not even gonna get the chance to talk to any pretty girls if I keep diving under parked cars every time I run across a pigeon.
I have scheduled therapy sessions with Bert from Sesame Street and Terry Malloy from On the Waterfront but I don’t have much hope for recovery. That’s why I have two words for pigeons: Falco Columbarius. That’s right, the pigeon hawk. Now I’m assuming that the fact that it’s named pigeon hawk means that it kills pigeons. Unfortunately, some brief online research couldn’t confirm that. Also unfortunately, I didn’t think to do that research until after I had already purchased 8 pigeon hawks on EBay. So maybe I’m gonna have to train them to kill pigeons. Doesn’t matter because whether it’s nature or nurture I’ve already ordered 8 pigeon hawk-sized BB guns. And that’s a purchase I do not regret.