My little brother…well…at a young age, his curiosity all got the best of him…
He wasn’t in kindergarten yet and nearly caught the house on fire when he put a Pop-Tart in the microwave with the foil wrapper still on it and then turned the dial all the way around (to the 45-minute mark).
And then a year later, he burned the motor up in the garage-door opener by clicking the remote and watching the door go up and down, up and down, up and down.
He broke trophies that belonged to my sister and me when he climbed a four-foot-tall chest of drawers because he “wanted to see what was up there.”
He had to have stitches in his foot when he got into my mom’s make up and broke a bottle of foundation and stepped on it.
One summer, we had a bird stuck in the chimney. Mom closed the damper so the bird couldn’t get into the house, and then proper the little fence that was around the fireplace at the mouth of the fireplace as a further precaution against the bird.
Somehow the bird managed to get into the house.
Upon further investigation, we found out Kevin opened the damper. He “wanted to see what was up there.”
Fast forward now to present day. Kevin is twenty-three. While he has managed to get his curiosity under check, old habits still die hard apparently.
You see, tonight (4/20/2010), Kevin once again let a bird into the house.
I have posted about the bird before, but let me explain. For the past three years, we have had a bird nesting on the wreath on our door. You think we’d get rid of the wreath, but we haven’t for whatever reason. I’m going to say it’s probably because it never gets old watching the bird get spooked by friends and random door-to-door salesman coming on the walk. When the bird gets spooked, he flies from the nest.
A few heads have been clipped by the bird.
And…more than that has happened.
An unfortunate family member came home one day and got pelted by feces by the baby birds that were beginning to fly.
Anyway, back to tonight.
We had just got watched Kate-bad-mother-of-eight get voted off of Dancing With the Stars and were a happy mood. Since nothing else was on TV, Andrea then turned the Deadliest Catch. We talked a little bit until the brother decided he needed to go Target for something. He asked us if we needed anything.
“Uhhh…” Andrea said thinking.
“She’ll want Haribo’s gummy bears,” I said.
“Yeah!” she said at the same time Kevin said, “I know that’s what she was going to say.”
Kevin finds his keys and stands up to leave. Andrea and I return our attention to our computers and TV.
Kevin opens the door.
Suddenly, I hear a scream!
“THE BIRD’S IN THE HOUSE, THE BIRD’S IN THE HOUSE!” Kevin screams from where he is laying on the floor thrashing back and forth.
Right, you read that correct. My brother, my 6”1 brother weighing around 200 pounds FELL ON THE FLOOR and began SCREAMING about the bird.
It was so unexpected, so not what I ever pictured happening in a million years, that it took me a minute to connect that Kevin was lying on the floor convulsing and screaming because the bird had actually flown into the house!
In fact, Kevin’s tantrum was so completely out of left field, that I didn’t put the words together and understand their meaning until I saw the bird fly up to our ceiling.
Andrea sprang into action and grabbed a mop and began to try to corral the bird off of the ceiling and out the door.
I opened the sliding glass door to the backyard.
Kevin continued to convulse and scream.
“Close all the doors!” Andrea yelled. “Where’s a bucket?!”
“Close all the doors!” Kevin asked finally able to stop his thrashing limbs and climb to his feet.
“To bedrooms!” Andrea hissed.
In our, the living room, dining room, foyer, and kitchen is one big room. The foyer is off of the kitchen, the kitchen looks into the dining room, and the living room is one giant room to the side of the kitchen and dining room. The bird flew from the ceiling in the kitchen to the dining room. He came close to flying out the sliding door. Like I said. Close, but no cigar.
With our Mac, our Brittany Spaniel (and a dog who has brought us birds before) getting a little curious about the bird, the bird flew back into the kitchen, finally going through the door that led to the laundry room. The laundry room opens into the garage.
“Shut the door!” I yelled. “Trap him in the laundry room.”
“Trap him?” Kevin asked.
I began running around like a crazy person trying to find keys to get into the side access door of the garage.
“Yeah,” Andrea said. “We can get him into the garage.”
I found my car keys and ran out the front door, crossed the driveway, got to the door, and unlocked it. Feeling my way in the darkness of the garage, I managed to make it to the garage door and open it.
The bird sat in front of the door that opened into the kitchen. He didn’t move.
I poked at him with a broom handle.
No movement.
I began to flip out that the bird was dead.
He moved his head.
Now I began to flip out about getting the bird out of the house. I envisioned him flying straight at me in some Alfred Hitchcock-type scenario where the bird scratched me all over and got his disgusting germs all over me. At the very least, I picture getting shit on.
I poked the bird again.
Nothing.
For about five seconds, I completely panicked.
Then I found the bucket I bought from the movie theatre for free refills from December 2009 to March 31, 2010.
I gently tiptoed into the laundry room, prepared for the bird to fly right smack dab into my face.
Nothing.
I turned the bucket over and slowly lowered it over the bird.
Nothing.
Now the bird was trapped under the bucket. Not exactly a solution.
I picked the bucket up, braced for an attack. No attack. Now I tried to scoop the bird into the bucket. The bird didn’t move. It took a bit of maneuvering, but finally the bird was in the bucket. He didn’t move.
I ran out of the laundry, out of the garage, back to the front door where the bird’s nest and her unhatched egg awaited her. I deposited her in our landscaping and ran back inside through the garage.
“Is it gone?” Kevin asked.
“Yeah,” Andrea said.
With that settled and Andrea and I laughing at our brother, he grabbed his keys to finally head to Target.
“Better go out the garage,” Andrea said.
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