The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer - The Lay of the Pigeon Slayer

04:06 pm June 22nd, 2005

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			The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer - The Lay of the Pigeon Slayer A Propædeutic Enchiridion {The Pursuit of Truth and the Grace of Pursuit}

baranoouji


	The Lay of the Pigeon Slayer
	All I can say is this: when I am driving away from work and mentally gearing up for lifting weights, I am probably not about to get all sentimental and swerve away from an idiot pigeon. The pigeon landed about 3 feet in front of my car as bumper to bumper highway traffic was whizzing by at 40 mph. So I thought about it for a moment, and kept right on driving. WHUMP! I looked in my rear view mirror and saw feathers all over. I went home, and thought about it for a moment. Surprisingly enough, I didn't feel guilty at all. I suppose I could have swerved away from the pigeon, and right into someone else's car. In my mind, human >= pigeon. (Depending on the human, really.) Killing an animal without eating it always makes me feel wasteful, but I wasn't about to pull over and cause a major traffic jam just to pick up pigeon carpaccio. Also, a pigeon living on the streets of D.C. probably tastes vile. ... I don't know. Duffy gave me a hug when I told him about it, except I'm not really upset. Just sort of bemused that I managed to squish a pigeon with two tons of steel. GO CAR OF DARWINIAN SELECTION! (I also wonder if this happened because I named my car "Evil Wizardington" and maybe he now requires pigeon sacrifices?)

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	Comments

From: chrysippvs	Date: June 22nd, 2005 09:13 pm (UTC)		(String)

Auspicious

1596 (implied in auspiciously), "of good omen," from L. auspicium "divination by observing the flight of birds," from auspex (gen. auspicis) "augur," lit. "one who takes signs from the flight of birds," from PIE root *awi-spek- "observer of birds," from *awi- "bird" + *spek- "to see." Connection between birds and omens also is in Gk. οιονος "bird of prey, bird of omen, omen," and ornis "bird," which also could mean "omen." Auspice (usually pl.) "influence exerted on behalf of someone or something" is from 1637.

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	From: baranoouji	Date: June 23rd, 2005 01:20 pm (UTC)		(String)

I fear that I wasn't able to perform the usual acts of divination. Unless there's a form of divination that uses squished pigeons to tell the future!

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	From: uilos	Date: June 22nd, 2005 09:55 pm (UTC)		(String)

a pigeon living on the streets of D.C. probably tastes vile
And is probably so polluted that it will make you very ill.

I drove over a pigeon last week in the parking garage. Not hit, just drove over. It was either too stupid to move or just not afraid of cars enough that three tons of gray death bearing down on it at all of five miles an hour instilled no fear in it's tiny bird brain. It just sat there as I slowed down, angled the wheels to either side of it, and drove over.

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	From: uilos	Date: June 22nd, 2005 09:56 pm (UTC)		(String)

Oops, missed a close italics somewhere at the end of the first line.

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	From: baranoouji	Date: June 23rd, 2005 01:26 pm (UTC)		(String)

no fear in its tiny bird brain

Exactly. Darwinian selection in the making, I tell you.

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	From: xanthamarioff	Date: June 23rd, 2005 03:12 pm (UTC)		(String)

Yuck.

I felt bad when I incinerated a bird, but if it landed right in front of my car... that's a kind of intense stupidity on its part.

And I seem to recall someone I knew wearing a neck brace for a week or two after totalling her car against a telephone pole when she swerved to avoid a squirrel, which also supports the "just squish it" campaign.

As does the fact that city pigeons are sky-enabled rats. Screw the fact that they're technically doves: they're gross.

Apparently -turtles- go "crunch" in a way that will haunt your dreams. And on that note, I'd better stop.

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	From: baranoouji	Date: June 23rd, 2005 03:33 pm (UTC)		(String)
	Aye, yucky it was.

I will say that the bird went quietly, with just a "WHUMP" noise. If it twitched and whatnot, it would have been horrible. Your bird in fireplace story still beats mine for personal horror, since I am afraid of that thing called "fire."

I usually swerve for animals, but my Matrix-fast reflexes noted that I was in very fast D.C. traffic, so my heuristics decided that a squished pigeon was less of a consequence than a traffic accident that would clog SE D.C.

Apparently -turtles- go "crunch" in a way that will haunt your dreams.

Please tell me you didn't personally experience that. :shudder: I stepped on a cricket once bare-footed, and that is a sound that I nevernevernevernever want to hear again. All chitinous, like a potato chip gone wrong.

By the way, this sounds like the first sentence in a horror story that involves zombie turtles.

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	From: xanthamarioff	Date: June 23rd, 2005 04:14 pm (UTC)		(String)
	Re: Aye, yucky it was.

No, I didn't personally squish the turtle - that was Shawn. (Whether he was a passenger or the driver at the time, I can't recall... and damn, it's been forever since I wrote/talked to them.)

Stepping on crickets is... I've only recently stopped screaming war cries when I hit them with a flyswatter. Barefoot stomping is NOT something I want to do at any cost!

I do indeed like that sentence.

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Dossier


User: baranoouji Name: Apprentice Artifex

Notices from the Manufacturer

And at its heart, a coiled and gleaming spring, unwinding plotted futures as it unwinds its own ribbon spine. Where are the limits of clockwork? Not here, not in a machine built to produce measurable pieces of time and space. Your optic fibres, your infra-red beams, and your field-effect transistors are all very well, but for machines that are a tangible part of reality, clockwork hearts beat more sincerely.
- Planetarium, Part iii