Quoth the raven, nevermore

          This past Saturday evening, I returned home from rehearsal and was informed that there was a bird in our bathroom. The details of how this actually came to be are still a bit fuzzy for me, but from what I can understand, my roommate was doing laundry in the basement and she cannot be sure, but she seems to have passed the bird on the back staircase unknowingly. What Hilary does know, is that the creature followed her into the house from the back staircase because upon reaching the top of the stairs, it flew through the kitchen, and then into the bathroom, at which point she closed the bathroom door behind it. 

          We think the bird had to have come from the basement but how the bird managed to get up two flights with no one noticing is remarkable. The first floor apartment below us has a back door but Hilary says that no one had opened it while she was there. After all, with it being 12 degrees in Boston on Saturday I don't believe our downstairs neighbors were looking to lounge on the back deck.

          So, this is how it stood upon my return: our only bathroom was occupied, so to speak. Hilary, who I come to find out is a bit afraid of birds, had already called Animal Control. When she dialed the number listed, she got the mayor's office and when she told them she thought she had dialed animal control, they said "We're closed." They said they might be able to send someone, but they couldn't be sure when this would happen. What if this had been more urgent? I guess rabid animals are only a problem on weekdays.

          We decided that someone just needed to calmly go in, move the shower curtain, move the window curtain, unlock the window and open it. I decided that I was up for the challenge. She told me she'd already called my boyfriend who was on his way anyway to pick us up for a friend's party. But, I'm no slouch- we didn't need a man to come swooping in to our rescue! Hilary told me I should probably put on leather gloves, in case it pecked at me, and a hat in case it flew in my hair. I was alarmed at these possibilities since neither had occurred to me. I decided I would agree to these precautions.

          So there I was in my knit beret and driving gloves, heading into our very small bathroom with Hilary holding a giant sheet standing in the hall behind. I opened the door. I did not see our feathered friend at first, but then I looked above to the shower head. I had pictured a sparrow. It was no sparrow. It was not as big as a crow, but it was no sparrow. It was brown with what seemed to be a very large curved beak. It immediately fluttered across to the other side of the shower, (which, by the way, was very loud), at which point I closed the door and started deep-breathing. I made another attempt at going in and opening the window, but did not last much longer before hyperventilating again. I made a third. This time he started flying toward the door. I closed the door. I decided that this was no longer a feminist issue. Brendan would be able to handle this much better than I. His parents have a parakeet.

          Having completely justified my wussiness, when Brendan arrived, there were now three very frightened beings in the house. He suggested we go in with a little bit of bread and make a trail of sorts toward the window after he had opened it. Brendan went in, armed with bread pieces. He closed the door and very calmly narrated the events as he saw them, as one might to an infant.

          "Ok, he's just afraid of me. When I get close, he flies away. Ok, I'm moving the curtain back. Oh wait, where'd he go? Oh, he's on top of the medicine cabinet. I'm opening the window. I'm spreading out the bread. I'm just going to sit down for a minute until he goes back to the shower to avoid me. Ok, everything's fine buddy..."

           The bird made no immediate effort to fly the coop but with the window open and Brendan's safe exodus from the bathroom complete, we decided we had better leave and head to the party. (Don't think that this decision wasn't strongly motivated by the fact that I was beginning to really need to pee). So with some trepidation about leaving the window fully open, we decided that no one was going to break in through a second floor window above a snow bank, and if they did, they might still find that our home was being guarded by a bird.

          And sure enough, when Hilary returned later that night, she found our guest was still feeling quite at home on top of the showerhead. Fortunately, Hil had used the bathroom at the party before she left. As we suspected, it wasn't until daylight that the bird figured out that the window opened to the outside. Poor thing. No one said he was a smart little fella.

          We suspect that this all happened due to a hole in the basement wall which the dryer vent has recently detached from. This marks just another thing on a small list of to-do's that the management has yet to handle, along with fixing their phone line so we can even call them. I tried to fix the dryer vent myself but I lack the necessary tools, not to mention the handy gene.
Fortunately, the bird was kind enough to only defecate in the shower. I have had other houseguests who weren't even so well housebroken.