It's An Omen

Yesterday in the mid-afternoon, Ellery and I started to leave PJP Nifong to go to PJP West and do a merchandise refresh before the busy Mizzou graduation and Mother’s Day weekend. Except when we went outside, we noticed there was a dead bird in the grill of my car. And it wasn’t like it had flown into my car while I was driving…it wasn’t bloody or maimed, rather it looked like it landed and then just fell over.

And maybe you are wondering what the point of this story is and really, there isn’t one. EXCEPT JEANNE HAS REPEATEDLY STATED FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE THAT DEAD BIRDS ARE AN OMEN. Awesome.

Also, by my car was a blue surgical glove on the ground. And once Ellery and I stood outside with our imaginations running away from us, we started to wonder WHAT IF SOMEONE WORE THE GLOVE AND PUT THE BIRD ON MY CAR AND THEN THREW THE GLOVE ON THE GROUND? Look, I know that makes no sense but it seemed perfectly sane in the moment. I’m an enneagram three with a wing of dramatic at my lowest point.

Of course, Jason was at West and that left me with irrational panic and a box of tissues to move the bird. That didn’t work, mainly because I skeeved myself out and couldn’t touch it, even with a 15 layer of tissue in my hands. So Ellery and I took ourselves to Starbucks and hoped the caffeine would soothe us and the transport would dislodge the bird. No such luck. In the end, I drove to West with my newly deceased bird friend and it survived the entire Providence Road to Stadium Blvd journey. Upon arrival, Jason plucked it off and gave it a hero’s burial in the dumpster.

But let’s go back to Jeanne’s whole claim that dead birds are an omen. When I called her on the way home in my bird free car, she said I had misunderstood my whole life and that rule only applies to birds in your house. SHE IS WRONG. THIS IS NOT WHAT SHE’S ALWAYS TOLD ME. I just Googled it and multiple sources claim a dead bird is a sign of trouble to come. I’m already up at night worrying about the economy, so I’m not sure how much mental energy I have to devote to worrying about the unknown. I’ll need to tell Jeanne this tomorrow so she can tell me I’m being ridiculous because she can’t even remember her dead bird omen philosophy. (But I promise you that if she found a bird in her house, this would be a different story from her perspective.)