The Rats of the Air

Let's talk about pigeons. Okay?

I strongly dislike them. No, I hate them, I really do. I place pigeons in the same category at rats, roaches and "rodents of unusual size" in the Princess Bride. They are disgusting.

Now, I feel bad about this for a couple reasons:

1. I have birds tattooed on my back. I like most of those creatures in the aves classification of species. I've memorized the verse in the bible that talks about sparrows. And have also considered having, "are you not worth more than they" permanently written on my body. I like birds, but I do not consider pigeons birds. They are gross.

2. God made birds. God made animals, and I do find it quite necessary to point out that on day five he made birds and sea creatures. And on day six- wild beasts, livestock, reptiles. .... So, perhaps it's okay to think lesser of birds than of cute little puppies and zebras and kangaroos. But I know I shouldn't feel such animosity toward these creatures. I shouldn't kick at them and shoo them away and stomp my feet to get them to fly in the opposite direction.

...

By our apartment there is a little walkway that is not really a side street, but more like a smallish sidewalk that splits the block in half and goes alongside the traffic pouring off the Queensboro Bridge. And it would be a really nice path. Someone has planted sunflowers that bloomed all summer. There is a private lot with a smallish garden. The area underneath the bridge is used as a motorcycle parking lot- fenced in and everything. (I'm sure this comes with a hefty price tag, and it seems a bit absurd. "Park your $35,000 motorcycle underneath a bridge for $250/ month..." Only in NYC.)

The point being- there are massive amounts of pigeons there most of the time. Why? Because people purposefully and intentionally dump bags of bird seed and loaves of bread to feed the birds.

PAUSE. (Now this also makes me feel guilty, because all I can hear playing in the background as I squint my eyes and cover my nose and mouth when I walk by here is...... "Feed the birds, tuppence a bag. Tuppence. Tuppence. Tuppence a bag...." You know? From Mary Poppins. Now, not only do I dislike pigeons, but (by association) I dislike little old hunched-back women who feed birds and Mary Poppins herself. This is a real source of conflict for me, because I really, really want to like Mary Poppins.)

I want to tell people who dump there bread ends and stale bagels, "No!! Please don't do that." But, I know they wouldn't listen.

And you want to know the worst part? One evening I encountered a "bird feeder." It was this old, white haired 80-something year old women in her night dress and cotton cover-up that snapped in the front. She had one of those shopping carts on wheels that all New Yorkers use to push grocery's home. As I turned the corner I heard the shooshing sound of thousands of little seeds and grains covering the cement, like rice being poured into a pot, and then I saw her. As she shook the bag empty the breeze caught ahold of the empty plastic and it fell to her feet.

She struggled to bend down to pick up her trash. Bending, leaning, reaching her left arm to finally snag the bag back. Her feeble body barely had strength enough to bend over, yet feeding those birds was for some reason important to her. Why?

It's hard to dislike a person like that, and I wonder if that will be me one day. But for some reason I took a little pleasure in seeing her struggle to pick up that plastic bag.