This post is something a little different from me. Here’s a personal essay I
wrote detailing a humorous story involving my very pampered cat and an
annoyingly noisy bird.
Like many newly committed couples, when my husband and I were first married, we
decided to adopt a pet. Since our apartment at the time didn’t allow pets, that
clearly meant we needed to adopt a cat. So at seven months into our marriage, we
adopted a white, seven-month-old cat. She slept through the whole adoption
process, clearly not caring about her sweet kitty fate. We named her Number One,
and she exemplified her namesake as she was truly the best cat. Her laid-back
attitude persisted through all areas of her life.
Except when it came to the blue jay.
Our tiny one-bedroom apartment had a single window in the bedroom which looked
onto the narrow alley between our building and the adjacent one. There were a
few concrete pillars lining the gravel alley roadway to prevent cars from
hitting the building, and they made perfect perches for the local birds. Sweet
little finches, chickadees, and other winged friends would sing or chirp just
outside the open window, filling our apartment with beautiful bird songs.
However, one day, a horrible squawking noise came loudly through the window.
CAW! CAW! I rushed over to see what made the awful sound and barely
caught a glimpse of the fat, blue-colored bird before he flew away.
The next time the noisy blue bird came to screech at the top of its birdy-little
lungs, it caught the attention of Number One. I was sitting on the bed reading,
and the cat jumped up next to me. The bed was situated in front of the window,
so the cat climbed over me and the headboard and then stared out at the feathery
visitor. She began making those weird chirping noises cats love to make—the
noise that indicates they see pray and they’re excited about that.
CAW! the bird squawked in reply.
Number One began whipping around her white tail, pressing her fluffy body
against the screen in the window.
“Cat, no!” I scolded as her tail smacked me in the face. I was worried she’d rip
the screen out of the window in her attempt to reach the bird, so I removed her
from the windowsill. As soon as the bird saw me, he flew away.
Figuring the ordeal was over, I got back to my book and proceeded to pet my
happy cat as she peered out the window, probably wondering if the bird would
come back.
He did return barely a minute later. Again, I got smacked in the face by a tail,
removed the cat from the window so she wouldn’t destroy the screen, and scared
away the bird. But this time, I also closed the window.
Of course, the blue bird came right back. His screechy greetings were muffled
this time by the closed window, but now Number One had less of a windowsill to
perch on. She balanced as best as she could on the top edge of the headboard,
pressing her white furry body against the glass, and proceeded to whip around
her tail and meow at the aggressive creature just outside.
I gave up on reading my book in bed and retreated to the living room, figuring
that eventually, the bird would tire of my cat and fly away.
And he did.
But he came back. All the time. That aggressive, noisy bird would appear
outside our apartment multiple times a day.
We kept the window closed so the cat couldn’t damage the screen. In turn, the
apartment became unbearably hot since it was summer and we had no AC and no
airflow. And, of course, you could still hear the bird’s ear-piercing cries
through the closed window. Plus, you couldn’t sit on the bed during a bird visit
because the cat would be busy racing back and forth across the headboard,
smacking everything with her tail.
Something had to be done.
We knew the bird kept returning specifically to visit the cat. They noisily
chatted with each other every time the bird called.
“Maybe if Number One couldn’t reach the window, the bird would stop coming by,”
my husband suggested.
“How are we supposed to do that?” I asked. “Cover the window completely?”
“Number One can’t jump very far. If we move the bed away from the window, she
probably won’t be able to reach it.” The window was around four feet from the
floor, and Number One could barely jump onto the sofa, let alone reach something
higher. His idea held merit, except for the fact that our bed was a massive
wooden hand-me-down piece of furniture, and moving it was no small feat.
“How?” Since the room was so small, there wasn’t enough space to rotate the bed
to situate it next to the wall opposite the window—which was the only other spot
we could practically put it.
My husband shrugged. “Take it apart. Reassemble it so it’s facing the window.”
Several hours and much ado later, we had successfully moved the bed a whole five
feet across the room.
However, we had severely underestimated our cat’s resolve to visit with the damn
bird.
The next time we heard the taunting CAW! from outside the window, my
husband and I shared a smug smile, knowing we had solved the problem. Number One
was desperate to get up to the window and paced on the floor underneath it.
Eventually, she decided to muster the courage to jump up to the window sill. She
backed away from the wall a bit, squatted down, mustering all of her kitty
jumping power, the sprung up into the air… and then went smack into the
wall. She scampered off defeated.
Although her first attempt was unsuccessful, the bird kept coming back, and she
kept trying to jump up to the window. She made it about once every three tries.
The bird would fly away when he saw a person, so going to the window to yank the
cat away would also scare away the bird. I also tried going outside and chasing
the bird away from the lane, but he kept coming back.
Now we not only had to deal with the constant annoyance of the bird screaming
right outside our window, but our cat was going to seriously injure or even kill
herself trying to get up to the windowsill.
I had no idea what to do. I needed serious help.
I grabbed my phone and dialed.
“Hey sweety, it’s good to hear from you! How are you doing?”
“I have a Dad-question,” I stated. I had a lot of dad-questions after moving out
of my parents’ home.
The power shut off; what do I do? My car tire is flat; what do I do? I came
home and the floor is covered in water; what do I do?
You get the idea. I still call with dad-questions occasionally. My dad knows a
lot of stuff. “There’s this bird. It’s blue. And if makes awful noises.”
“Ahh, it must be a blue jay. They can make quite the racket.”
“Okay, well, it’s befriended our cat.” I proceeded to explain the situation: the
noise, the lack of airflow, the rearrangement of the furniture, and our cat’s
intent on killing herself.
After getting a good laugh, my dad launched into fix-it mode. “Most birds,
including blue jays, are terrified of snakes,” he explained. “Even something
that looks like a snake will be enough to scare them away.”
“I could get a rubber snake!” I exclaim.
“It’s even easier than that. Just cut up an old garden hose into four to
six-foot lengths—”
“I don’t have an old garden hose. I would have to buy a new one. I could just
buy a rubber snake—”
“We used to take an old garden hose, chop it up, and hang all the pieces among
the branches of the apple trees in the orchard because the birds kept eating the
apples. Someone’s gotta have an old garden hose. Maybe ask one of your
neighbors—”
“Dad, I live in an apartment building. All my neighbors live in apartments. None
of them have an old hose.”
“I guess you could use a new one, but an old one would be best. It worked super
well in the orchard. We didn’t have trouble with the birds after that. You know,
I bet there’s a lawn maintenance crew that has an extra old garden hose you
could use.”
“There’s a specialty toy store just down the road from my work. I can stop by
during my lunch and grab a rubber snake.”
“You could ask around. Someone will have an old hose. But I guess you could buy
a new one.”
“I’ll just buy a toy snake. Thanks so much, Dad, for the idea! I love you!”
“Love you too, sweety. Glad I could help. Call anytime you have another
dad-question.”
The largest rubber snake they had at the specialty toy store near my work was
six feet long. It was perfect. I shoved the floppy rubber toy, which was
surprisingly realistic, onto the window sill, and the blue jay never visited
again. Number One stopped trying to jump up to the window and proceeded to live
a long kitty life.
The toy snake would go on to scare away a variety of birds and squelch annoying
squawking on a few occasions. And to this day, the sound of a blue jay makes my
blood boil.
Surprisingly, Number One wasn’t afraid of the snake toy; however, thinking back,
I don’t think she was afraid of anything. She didn’t have another close
encounter with a bird friend until a bird got trapped inside our house, but
that’s a story for another day.
