It’s rare when someone solicits my advice for something. It occurred this morning, however, at the Sleep Center when Janice stopped me while I mopped one of the rooms. She asked me how to get rid of a mockingbird that lived outside of her bedroom window.
Even though I was thrilled with the question, I asked Janice why she didn’t ask God to get rid of the mockingbird for her. Janice is very religious, which I don’t mind. Rachel always talked about God, too. When bad things happened around, Rachel, though, she’d say, “Glory to God” and then shrug her shoulders. When bad things happen around Janice, she says, “It’s not my fault,” even though both her God and I saw that tupperware of spaghetti blow up in the microwave.
Janice told me God had more important things to do than worry about her mockingbird, but I told her I doubted that, since he cared more about a mockingbird than most kids on this planet if I was judging by nutrition, and some times, even life spans. I always like saying things like that to Janice. I used to say the same things to Rachel but she’d tell me I was full of crap: “See, Cyrus, you believe in God. It’s just a really stupid God you’ve picked up from really stupid people.” Then she would offer me something in the room and explain it was better I believed [said object] was God. Once when she said that she picked up a stress ball on the coffee table. Then she looked at it a second and said that the stress ball really was what most people thought God was. Whatever, Rachel. Sometimes it was a lucky thing she was so pretty.
Janice must have been having a lot of trouble with that mockingbird because she said, “Oh Cyrus, one day you’ll see.” Then she asked me again about the mockingbird. She told me she tried hanging a strong magnet she bought at an outdoors store. I asked her why she would do that and she had some convoluted explanation about magnetic fields and a bird’s sense of direction. That was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. I told her that she should try hanging a whole bunch of blueberries in the tree. I told her this because the Northern Mockingbird loves blueberries. Plus they are a very expensive fruit.
I couldn’t keep up the charade though, and told her the best thing she could do was to wait out the mockingbird. It’s spring so he's probably nesting or still looking for a mate. Her best chance was to hope he moved on. She wasn’t going for that, so I told her she could buy a fake owl and put it in the tree, but there’s no way the mockingbird will be fooled by it. The best thing she could do, even better than waiting for him to move on, is to fall in love with the mockingbird. It’s actually a very intelligent, comedic bird prone to dive-bombing animals and chasing off larger birds it should, by all measure, be terrified by.
“Yeah well, we need our sleep. I’ll just have my husband shoot it with a pellet gun,” Janice said.
“That’s a great solution, Janice. I suppose that’s what you did when your kids were babies and they cried at night.” She walked out of the room, though, mumbling under her breath that I was either a "madman monster" or "Monsieur Moriarty." I feel like that bird had a better chance of survival if I had just never said a thing to Janice. I should have stopped with the blueberries suggestion.
I think maybe I’ll see if Sammy and Boyce want to save a mockingbird.
