The Dove

A dove died on our roof.

Most distressing. It was past sundown, and very cold out. We had a barely visible bloated white lump of feathers moving ever-so-gently in the breeze. The corpse was perched right over some of our landscape bushes too, because something this icky couldn't at least be *easy*, oh not a chance.

I called Dad. He mocked my lack of enthusiasm for the task ahead. I was really hoping he'd volunteer to come remove it for me.

I got the ladder out. I slapped my knees with it a couple of times before I got it set up straddling the bushes. I put on thick work gloves and grabbed a broom.

The trip to the top of a ladder after dark in freezing temperatures is never fun. It's a relatively short climb, but a combination of vertigo and cold temps had me shivering pretty bad. My wife handed the broom up to me. I took a deep breath and moved the bristles of the broom over to sweep off the dead bird.

The dove wasn't dead.

Several things happened at once. My broom hand spaz'ed, causing the broom handle to hit me on the head. The dove jumped and flapped and vomited feathers at me. I lost my balance on the ladder, causing a desperate butt-wiggling arm-waving "save me!" dance to break out. And I taught the neighbor kids some new words.

Several seconds later, I got a grip on the ladder. I was bent over (looking down, which was great for my vertigo), muscles shaking from terror and vertigo and the cold. I looked up, and a moderately annoyed dove looked down at me as if to say, "What the heck are you doing, idiot?"

There are now some white streaks on our roof shingles where the dove "died". I'm not going to try to clean them off. I no longer care what is or isn't on my roof.