I am slowly being driven insane by a bird. (“Being?” some of you smarty-pants may ask.) Our living room has 20 foot ceilings and we have one of those palladium windows that so far serves the following useful purposes: (1) Floods the living room with light from the lightning strikes of every storm, which does nothing to quell my lighting phobia; (2) Allows me to see how the very tall and very top-heavy tree in my front yard bends and threatens to crash through the house, which does nothing for my high wind phobia; and (3) Lets in some strange blinking light at night that keeps me awake sometimes. Every day, several times a day while I am home and who knows how many times when I’m not, this bird flies up to the window, lands on the windowsill, mind you, he lands on it – he does not fly into the window by accident, he lands on the windowsill with great grace and purpose and then begins jumping up and kicking the window with his tiny bird feet. Pow. Pow. Pow. Pow. Every now and then he will peck it in frustration. Pow. Pow. Pow. Peck. Peck. Pow. Pow. Pow. Peck. Pow. Pow. In the beginning this would continue until I opened and closed the front door. The first few times I was bewildered. “What is that noise?” The next stage was amusement. “Look at that crazy bird.” Next came the questions. “Why is he doing that?” “Is it always the same bird?” “What does he want?” He doesn’t seem confused, you see. He seems determined. Determined to kill the bird he thinks he sees by kicking it, (kicking not being the m.o. I would think a bird would use to kill another bird, but really, what do I know about birds?) or determined to get in my house. Next stage: mild annoyance. This stage involved stepping quickly out my front door with a broom at the first sound of pecking and waving the broom at the empty window, empty because the bird flew away the minute I opened the door. Still, for effect, I slapped the broom up against the house as close to the window as I could get, hoping that would dissuade him. It did not. I am currently in stage five, which I like to call “Losing It.” I now burst out of my front door like a mad woman at the first sound of pecking, round the corner of my house, and scream things at the bird like, “WHAT DO YOU WANT?” and the most helpful, “GO AWAY!”, and finally the obvious, “YOU ARE MAKING ME CRAZY!” As you have probably predicted, (I am quite certain that my readers are intelligent people. Both of them. Is this reader joke getting old? Too bad, it’s still tickling me.) this has not worked. The bird flies to the tree in my side yard, perches on a branch, glares down at me, and waits for me to go away. Then he returns to kick and peck and kick and peck and kick and peck…Thank goodness for nightfall. Would you believe that yesterday morning when I left for work, this bird was sitting on top of the side mirror on my car, leaning over and pecking at the mirror? Like I said, he’s determined. Determined to drive me mad.