"Complicated case. I'm a night owl - Wilson's an early bird. We're different species."- House, House, M.D.

Thank heavens this wasn't the bird that was in my backyard building a nest. Had that been so, I would have sewed lead weights into my socks so I couldn't be taken off into the air with it. - Photo by The Mrs.

Wilder Note: I've got a crazy idea. I've been drinking working like a dog to write these posts. And, I've got 300 stashed away. I'm thinking that I could post every day and polish up some of the old crap gems and maybe even make them funnier when viewed in perspective. Think of it as sort of a Gilligan's Island of blogging. Also this lets me get them slowly moved over to my computer in a manageable format for longer-term storage (I did my initial work on Blogger, not on Word, so I don't have a copy on my computer). /crazy idea.

I was not prepared for the birds.

When The Mrs. and I took The Boy and Pugsley out for spring break (woo), The Mrs. came across the fairly utilitarian idea of ripping open a bag of dog food and leaving it out for our canine companions – perfect. They’d have food while we were gone for a week, and the electric fence would give them enough electricity to induce seizures if they dared set a paw outside of its unsleeping limits.

It was a good idea. It was a Wilder idea.

So, when we got back into town, The Mrs. continued the practice of feeding the dogs out of a ripped open bag of dog food. Easy, simple, and, well, the family’s economic situation isn’t tied to ensuring that the dogs get just enough food. Oh, sure, I could see myself counting out the bits of kibble to make sure no dog got too much food, but, hey, even I have limits. If I did that, there would be graphs of dog weight vs. food input, and perhaps even counts of how much fur each dog lost as a result of feeding them tiny rocks instead of food, or some of that new, “special” dog food that renders the dogs inert and room temperature. (note: no dogs were injured in the thinking about this column.)

Despite the whole “feeding the dogs once a week” lazy-goodness aspect of this, it did not come without a price.

A feathery price.

We’ve become the most desired place on our block for birds to come and eat. The birds are eating dog food.

I noticed this when no less than a dozen were camped out on our roof, attempting to sneak down to our porch and snatch the crunchy-liver-flavored goodness that our dogs were guarding as well as the French were guarding the boarder with the Netherlands in the 1930’s. The birds, even large, ungainly birds, would swoop down with impunity and snatch the kibble from our oblivious horde of dogs who seemed to be afflicted with narcolepsy. (An aside: all dogs are this tired – what exactly do they do that makes them want to sleep 21 hours a day? Also, what do I have to do to get on this bandwagon?)

The birds were eating dog food.

This frightens me.

Birds are already feathery. The thought of them flying around with big, shiney canine teeth and a propensity to chase balls scares me. Sure, it would be cute for a while, then a batch of my canine-birds would show up at Enron™ Minute-Maid© field and eat the Astros®. Then I’d be in the paper. No.

I decided to avoid all this and take the dog food and put it in a plastic box (full disclosure – The Mrs. did this). I think that will eliminate the whole bird problem – no food, no birds.

Except one.

A little tiny yellow bird built a nest upon a column in our porch, and The Mrs. pointed this out yesterday.

“Shoo, bird,” I said. My hand had to get very close to spook the bird out of the nest.

I checked and found out why – I’m much scarier than a tiny yellow bird. There was an egg in the nest.

Damn.

The Mrs. said, “Well, you can’t kick her out now.”

She’s right. That wouldn’t be nice. Plus, the bird was panting and licking my hand.