Death by french fry

Yesterday, when I had those several lovely hours to myself, I found and bought the Louis Vuitton handbag, as you may have read (if not, scroll down, because, like, WHOA!!!) and after spending an hour and a half in the charity shop, I was pretty thirsty. So I went to a nearby McDonald's drive-thru and bought a medium Diet Coke and an oatmeal raisin cookie with the intention of spending my last forty minutes sitting in the parking lot of Our Lady of Mount Carmel church and reading my library book while enjoying my snack. It was a perfectly lovely spring day; too nice to go into any little bistro-type place, much less a McDonald's. So fortified by this happy plan, I drove out of the McD's parking lot.

Just outside the parking lot was a stop light. Some previous McDonald's customer -- a car picnicker, perhaps -- had thrown some food out of his or her vehicle, maybe some french fries. Anyway, there were two pigeons there at the stop light, right in my lane, pecking away at the food on the road.

The stop light turned green. I was rolling forward. The pigeons were not moving. The pigeons were not moving. THE PIGEONS WERE NOT MOVING!!! They were just standing there in the road, greedily gobbling french fries and not paying the least bit of attention to the fact that Death, disguised in two tons of applesauce-colored steel and fiberglass, was bearing down upon them. All of a sudden, one lazily took flight, leaving his comrade there to get truly and soundly squished by Applesauce Anne's right front tire. Eeeewwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!! I didn't dare look in my rearview mirror.

I don't like squishing things with my car. The last time I ran over something was, I believe, 1988. I ran over a possum that darted across the road and I cried for the next twenty minutes, over a dirty, nasty possum. I was only 25 and still full of Cinderella-type ideas about happy woodland creatures helping my hang out the dwarves' washing on a line spun by a spider between two birch trees. This time, at a more cynical and forest-weary forty-something, I merely shuddered and winced and said, "Dude. I am really sorry about that" as I drove on to the church, where I bowed my head and said a prayer to Jesus, Who sees even the little sparrows (and presumably pigeons) fall.