Birds are TERRIFYING

Anyone who knows me well is aware of three pretty basic facts about me. I wouldn't say they are definitive of my person, rather they just tend to obviate other information due to their supposed "strangeness" (they're my truths, so I find them completely normal, of course). These three things are:

1. I love hobos
2. I can't eat gluten (more on that coming soon)
3. I have a deeply entrenched- and admittedly irrational- phobia of dead birds


I cannot even bring myself to image search a real bird, that's the level of crazy we're talking about here.

If you think you can handle my ornithophobia, click "Unabridged."



Yes, I have always been this way. No, I have never seen Hitchcock's "The Birds."  My parents have told me stories about times when I was very young and they had to drive to the other side of the Mall parking lot because of a dead bird in our previous location causing me to scream bloody murder.

So far as we can tell, this fear has no specific genesis. I also can't tell you exactly why they are so scary. I've tried before to articulate the particular fear the sight of dead birds instills in me, but all explanations are secondary, even to me. I can't tell you why birds are creepy and terrifying, I just know that they are and that I have all the classic physical responses to fear (i.e. totally freaking out) when I cross the path of one.

It's important to note that the fear is of dead birds, and, as one of my good friends delights in pointing out, my only beef with live birds is their ability (and in my opinion proclivity) to become dead.


On this point, I believe myself to be incredibly justified. Birds are  freakin fragile. What else dies slamming into the screen door? I'd be a goner several times over if that were the case for humans. They look all squishy and not at all sturdy, plus their bones are hollow. Not a good combination for survival, and yet they persist. For millennia. Sigh. I can only attribute this to high reproductive rates.

Knowing all of this adds a special extra layer of amusement to some otherwise fairly common events in life. Like a few feathers left on the thanksgiving turkey. A flock of seagulls at the beach. Or roadkill. The following tale took place on an epic road trip I just undertook with my friend, Michelle. Luckily for her, she was not in the car when I completely overreacted and almost killed myself, and I'm sure you've guessed where this is going so I'll just get on with it.

Driving along, minding my own business when, out of nowhere, evil approaches...

My very adult and road-safety approved reaction to the inevitable:

(difficult to draw a stick figure, in a car, in the fetal position)

CENSORED due to disturbing images and the fact that my eyes were definitely closed for these 12 seconds.

Shaky FB update at the rest-stop while I inspect my car from about 20 ft away for any, let's say remnants.

Miraculously, I  managed to not run myself or anyone else off the road despite the above not being an exaggeration At. All.

How I proceed to drive for the rest of the drive my life: 

So, in summation: Birds are evil evil beings just looking for opportunities to turn into little feathered corpses all around me. Also, I'd be one of the easiest contestants of all times to eliminate on Fear Factor.