A friend of mine puts out feeders for hummingbirds, but they don’t always respect boundaries.
One day, a hyperactive, little bird slipped inside her house.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, no. What now?’” she said.
Later on, I told Jay Bell, my friend from “Bradenton-Fun-in-the-Sun-Baby, Florida,” about her hummingbird encounter. Before I finished the story, we imagined how the scenario might play out.
“It’d be a nightmare,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said, “like navigating the seventh layer of hell.”
“Not that bad, Morris,” he said.
“You’re right,” I said, “but it wouldn’t be easy.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” he said.
I could imagine myself standing on a chair with a broom and then see myself falling from the chair and smashing a lamp with the broom.
I could see my wife calling 91 while the hummingbird happily buzzed around the living room.
I pictured blood, a trip to the emergency room, and a police officer saying, “It’s illegal to spill human blood on a hummingbird, creep. You’re under arrest.”
“Whoa, Morris,” Jay said. “Exaggerate much?”
“I’m trying to paint a picture with words here,” I said. “How would you do it?”
“If I opened the door to let the hummingbird out,” he said, “I’m afraid a whole bunch of lizards would get in.”
Jay had just seen the biggest lizard he’d ever seen in the wild since he’d moved to Florida more than 20 years ago. It was an epic beast, a scaly, beady-eyed monster that Jay suspected might have been an iguana.
“It was massive. Well, not really massive, but big. Really, really big,” Jay Bell said.
So don’t imagine a tiny lizard getting into Jay’s house. Instead, picture something the size of a Doberman.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Morris,” he said. “It wasn’t that big.”
Or think of it as a cold-blooded varmint the size of an exceedingly muscular dachshund with a long, veiny tail.
“Varmint?” Jay Bell said.
“A troublesome wild animal,” I said.
“Weird word,” he said.
“I’m going with it,” I said.
“You’re the writer,” he said.
Then the bird’s flying around Jay’s head, and he’s swatting at it with his hands. The three dogs get involved. They crowd around Jay’s feet and start barking, jumping, and snapping their teeth.
“I wasn’t thinking about the dogs creating chaos,” he said.
So Jay’s got a plastic container.
“I wouldn’t use a plastic container,” he said. “It might hurt the bird.”
“You can’t have a broom because I had a broom in my story,” I said.
“I wouldn’t use a broom either,” he said.
“What then?”
“A pillow case,” he said.
So Jay’s got a pillow case as he sneaks up on the bird except he can’t sneak because the dogs are barking and snapping.
“I’d put the dogs out back,” Jay said.
“Nope, they have to be there to fight the giant lizard.”
“I’d forgotten about the lizard,” he said.
“Can’t do that,” I said. “I don’t see how you get out of this without losing a finger and several toes.”
“Let me make sure I understand,” he said. “A hummingbird gets into your house, and you end up in jail. It gets into my house, and I lose body parts,” he said. “What actually happened?”
“She wrapped the hummingbird in a towel on her first try and took it outside as easy as you please,” I said.
“Wow,” he said. “I think she wins the story contest.”
“By a mile,” I said.
Thanks for reading
