Unwelcome visitor

Some friends today were talking about mice and other unwanted critters that sometimes take up residence in your home.

 

And although I have my own mouse story (and that brief run-in with a lizard), my most memorable unwelcome critter was the, um, well…

 

Once upon a time, I lived in a dorm in law school.  I went away for Spring Break.  When I came back, there were … well, hell, it looked like little specks of white paint … on some of my belongings.  It gave the impression that someone had come in over that week and painted the place -- and had just missed a bit.

 

I cleaned and scraped them off everything in the living room, then went into my bedroom.  (It was one of those two-bedrooms-and-a-common-room dorms.)  I had a lovely little grey felt hat, which I kept on a bookshelf.  “Had” is clearly the operative word in this sentence, as it was pretty much covered with the white paint.  And that wasn’t going to come off felt.

 

At this point, I started considering the possibility that it wasn’t paint.

 

Frankly, it looked like … well, it looked like bird poop.  I changed the operative hypothesis to the idea that a bird had flown in through the fireplace, crapped on everything I owned, and flew back out.

 

I threw the hat away.

 

I washed my hands real good.

 

I looked around and cleaned everything else with a sponge.  Well, except for the HUGE pile of bird crap under the radiator.  That was going to take some serious cleaning, and it was late and I was tired.

 

I got ready for bed, and curled up under the blankets right next to the radiator.

 

Something nagged at me, and I gotup again.  Checked under the bed.

 

Dead pigeon.