Have your eyes ever scanned the horizon and lighted on a turkey vulture? Have you ever been driving innocently along only for your nose to suddenly be assaulted by the smell of rot, your eyes forced to take in its accompanying pack of roadside vultures? Have you ever considered what you would do if they were to suddenly swoop down and attack you?
Maybe not, but I certainly have over the years.
Along with, did Alfred Hitchcock leave out a scene from the movie Birds with one of these death scavengers intentionally? Was it over fears that doing so would be too traumatic for audiences, or did his mind simply lack the imagination? Whichever the case, his lack of attention to this, I feel, has led to folks taking an unfortunate and disappointingly lackadaisical approach to these torturous looking death sniffers. Thanks to this fictional movie, too many have grown up apprehensive of the seagull when the turkey vulture is the clear and potentially present threat to humanity.
When I was younger, I worked as a pharmacy technician and part of my job was delivering medications to patient’s homes. One place I delivered medications to was an assisted living facility for mostly older folks. After doing so for a few months, I noticed a veritable plague of these death birds beginning to hang about the place.
They ringed the lake, they glared malevolently down from rooftops and the wrought iron fencing. When leaving the facility, you might even encounter one or two watching you from their lofty perch upon your car’s rooftop. To say my writer’s mind became increasingly apprehensive and suspicious of the place, in a mildly joking matter, is an understatement. Every visit facetiously furthered my suspicion and supposition on this subject.
Pregnant at the time, I had to ask myself serious questions: What if they were suddenly to go mad while I was inside and I had to fight [waddle aggressively] my way back to the safety of my car? Would I even be safe in my car? Could their destructive beaks pop my tires or smash my windows? What about those terrible claws?
A win-win scenario for them would probably be knocking one or two of us off. I’m sure it would exert less effort for them than flying around all day searching out roadkill and the like. I feel like me personally, I could easily feed at least ten on any given day.
Developing a recent taste for blood, California squirrels have become inexplicably carnivorous. As we all know, what happens in California often spreads to the rest of the nation, so how long before the squirrels here start bloodthirstily hunting down their meals like the carnivorous squirrels of California? How long before the birds catch on?
Imagine if they did? Forget a tinfoil hat, you wouldn’t be able to leave the house without full on riot gear and a 20 gauge. You might even want to consider strapping on some leg weights.
We must ban together and meet this threat head on before we see unrest in the local squirrel population. Wait until tomorrow, and it may already be too late.