So, last night, Dwight and I are watching Castle on iTunes, because we’ve failed to set the DVR for it for the last, I don’t know, 9 weeks, and we were interested to see if it was any good. Turns out it is. We like it a lot. So we had just finished up and were doing some internet research for a project that I just started working on yesterday – it’s an idea I got from a guy I work with (Thanks, R!) and it’s actually going to turn out pretty cool. Turns out Richmond is a small enough place that you can find small degrees of seperation between darn near EVERYTHING. Anywhoo, we’re looking up stuff on the ol’ Interwebs and I hear this hellacious squawking outside. It sounded really close to the back door, and I said to Dwight, “Hon, I think Jake got a bird, can you go check?”
Sure enough, Jake is sniffing at this little blue and black birdie that is writhing around on the ground. Dwight grabs his collar and pulls him back, and the little birdie is gasping for breath and trying to move. It gives up the ghost right before my eyes. I feel awful. I look at Jake. He doesn’t feel awful. He looks extremely curious why we won’t let him go chew on his new treat, and kind of excited that we’re both out there paying attention to him and saying his name, but there is no guilt.
**I know what you’re thinking, and dogs CAN feel guilt. Maybe not all dogs, but some of ’em. I’ve seen it.
Anyway. Dwight is holding on to the dog. Someone’s got to get rid of the dead bird, otherwise the rascal will eat him. I go inside, whimpering a little, because I was pretty sad, put on some surgical gloves (my dad bought a bulk box so that I wouldn’t do housework with my bare hands and I had an unfortunate accident with the regular kind of rubber gloves one time – different story for a different time, but it involved the little yellow fingertip of the glove getting folded under whilst scrubbing, then flipping back up and shooting cleaner into my eye – a situation I’m not anxious to repeat, so I wear surgical gloves and safety glasses while I clean the bathroom and kitchen. Go ahead and laugh, but The Works toilet cleaner BURNS…where was I? Oh yeah, putting on surgical gloves to dispose of dead birdie) grabbed a plastic trowel that I thought I’d thrown away a long time ago, a shoebox from Payless Shoe Source (you could pay more for a bird coffin, but why?) and went outside. In retrospect, I’m surprised I didn’t put on my safety glasses.
I scooped the little guy up and put him in the box. Buried the box where Jake can’t get to it, and that is the end of this sad little tale, and why my dog is a murderer. As a side note, that dead bird is a cautionary tale to other birds who swoop down and Jake daily and try to eat his eyeballs. Suckas better recognize.
