Ornithophobia

Everyone's afraid of something.  It's something I like to ask people to break the ice, because the things that scare you and how you react to them are indicative of personality.  In my discussions, I like to break things down in to three categories: mental, physical, and irrational.  As far as I can tell, I have more irrational fears than mental or physical.  Dolphins are the biggest-but that's a story for another time.  The most pressing fear at the time is my irrational fear of birds.

At the moment there are three pigeons nesting in the rafters of our patio.  I didn't realize they were there until yesterday morning when I was sitting, minding my own business, and one flew down and scared the spit out of me.  Now it's Saturday morning and I've been sitting on the couch for the last hour, catching up on things, watching the same one pigeon fly down, pick up the same thin piece of wood, fly up to the rafters and drop the wood.  Then repeat after a minute or two.

I thought it was the same few twigs... until I walked outside.  Our table is covered in twigs and wood.  These stupid sky rats are bringing in nest material and littering our patio with it.  I just chased them off, but they'll be back.  Bless their hearts, they won't let a giant with a broom get in the way of building a nest on a four inch wide slab of concrete.

Really, it's their beady little eyes that seem to follow me and their flappy little wings that send me into a frenzy.  I feel like they're watching me, waiting for the opportune moment to fly into my hair and carry me away to their nest where I'll be pecked to death.  Then I remember that I'm probably at least six times bigger than most birds.  And losing my composure in public because a bird startled me is just embarrassing at my age.  

Real life photos of bird induced panic
You can't fake this stuff.

Maybe it's because my ninth grade English teacher made us watch Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, and I still vividly remember how the birds pecked people's eyes out (mostly because the blood looked like ketchup).  Maybe it's because they really are mental bullies of the sky.  Either way, they give me the heebie jeebies and I'll be relieved to get back to my bird-less patio at the JC.

UPDATE: I swear the momma bird is STARING at me, challenging me.  If it came to a fight, I honestly think she'd win.