The Birdie Song

Yeah I’m one of those. Who retches violently while you’re excitedly showing off your new Hidesign LEATHER bag. Who turns an unbecoming shade of green while you chomp on chicken legs across the dinner table. Who runs like a mad woman down the road chasing anyone who dares throw a stone at a stray dog. Whose heart sinks right down to the centre of the earth when she sees those poor chickens tied upside down to a bicycle handlebar.

That’s me. The animal lover. The Hell Hath No Fury Like An Animal Lover Crossed woman.

So the other day I’m taking my dog (my little cocker spaniel named Smokey-The-Best-Dog-In-The-World) for a walk down my road. And what do I see? A bunch of gypsy-type men carrying big shoulder bags and SLINGS are walking ahead of me. There could be only one reason they would carry slings.

Blood’s just starting to simmer now. My COLD look is in place.

They walk around looking up at trees looking, I presumed, for little helpless birds to shoot down with their hideous sling…so that they can clip their wings, put them in cages and sell them to some sucker who thinks the birds will sing happily to him while he throws them a few bird seeds every morning.

Anyway so while my thoughts are fast forwarding to a guillotine-style slaying of the gysies, they aim their sling at the nearest tree and send some poor little peaceful birds flying!

That’s it! I’m livid. Blood’s crossed 100 degrees now. I put on my Death-eater look. I pick up speed and rehearse my lines - “You dirty, disgusting, heartless bastards – don’t even THINK about killing some poor innocent bird! For I’m from Blue Cross and they’ll put you in JAIL for a good long while”. Of course I was planning to throw in some Animal Rights Violation Acts while I was at it.

So I’ve almost reached them, my poor doggie trotting along wondering what the hurry is all about.

Then their first victim falls down on the road. My heart stopped. I was too late. Why oh why didn’t I hurry up a little more? I could have saved a life. A poor helpless little bird was dead thanks to no intervention from me. How could I forgive myself?

And then I saw it. The victim. A plump little green mango! A MANGO! They weren’t hunting birds! They were hunting mangoes!! I wanted to run up to them and shake them by the shoulders and sing 'Its a wonderful life' but then again maybe not. So those were the murderers I had a run-in with. Ha ha ha. I laughed giddily out of sheer relief. Ha ha ha ha ha. Phew! Ok so a bunch of gysies think I’m nuts. I don’t care. The birds are still singing out there.