Baked In A Pie

People: the most terrifying, weirdest, grossest thing happened to me yesterday and I don't know if I'm going to be able to describe it well enough to do it justice. But of course I'm going to try anyway.

I was driving home from work, cruising along at a fair 50 mph with my windows open and my tunes rocking, when out of nowhere, WHAM. There was an explosion of feathers and blood and something rock solid slammed into my arm and fell down my side. A bird had kamikaze dived into my OPEN CAR WINDOW, smashed into the window frame, and then the force of it hitting the window threw it into my body and then fell under my seat. I only remained stunned for a moment, then started screaming and almost drove off the road. I finally managed to pull off the road into a church parking lot, jumped out of the car and proceeded to run around in circles, still screaming. After I screeched enough to make my throat hurt I gathered up my courage to peer back in my car. Through the haze of feathers I spied the lifeless little body of a sparrow, resting peacefully on a stack of my cds that were on the floor of my backseat.

So then I had a bit of a scream again, especially when I looked at my arm and it was spattered with bird blood. I have a mild fear about birds under normal circumstances, even pet birds freak me out, and wild birds in my car topped my list of Most Scary Things Ever. There was no way I could get back in the car at this point and I tried to call Chris, but no answer. So I called my mother instead, which was a bad idea because I was crying, shrieking, and laughing all at the same time and made my mother do the same. She recommended I not touch the bird, since it probably had diseases (which didn't help much since it's blood was already all over me) and that I should ask someone for help in getting the bird out of my car.

I steeled myself and tried to stop my hands from shaking as I got back in and drove to the nearest gas station. On the way I tried to think up some plausible excuse as to why there was a dead bird in my car that didn't make me look ridiculous and/or like a bird killer. I also let out intermittent little shrieks when I thought about the bird somehow regaining consciousness, hopping up, and proceeding to peck my legs. You know, because that was entirely possible, even though it's little bird head was dented in and there was blood coming out of it's little bird beak.

I finally got to the gas station and found a young man attendant. I explained what happened, suppressing my shudders and trying hard not to freak the hell out that a DEAD BIRD was still in my car and Oh. My. LORD it was hot out and that bird was going to bake in my car and then that would be it. I'd have to sell the Civic because I couldn't drive around in vehicle that smelled like sparrow casserole.

The man was nice enough despite my incoherence and simply reached under my car seat with some paper towels, grabbed the bird body, took it away, and came back with a shop vac to clean up the feathers and blood. I scrubbed down my hands and arms like I had been subjected to radioactive materials and thanked the man profusely. I think I was crying a little, but he was nice enough not to mention it and refrained from making fun of me until I left.

Seriously, have you ever even heard of something like this? It could only happen to me. And you know this.

I'm never driving with my windows open again.