A Return from Wilting

I love this moment when the old mood snaps and I float to the surface. That first gasp of air is wonderful. Still no oomph to write; but it doesn't matter quite yet. I'll force myself to write another bit of silliness and better things will come.

~

Just to let everyone know, I really don't like peacocks. They truly are beautiful. They are also selfish, greedy, and very, very noisy. There's a cultural park near my parents house, and one week the peacocks started to escape.

Now, I worked at said park in the afternoons. My summer/after school job. Possibly the most visual, in-your-face job I've ever had~ I sold coconuts with straws out of a canoe. My muumuu was white, royal blue, and hot pink. I wore a coconut hat on my head. WITH coconut leaf accouterments shaped like birds sticking up. And flowers.

The best part about it was the canoe was fiberglass painted to look like plastic wood, and the lagoon was only three feet deep. Got the image now?

At any rate, there were free range chickens already there. Then someone got the idea to introduce free range peacocks. They very carefully clipped their wings to keep them in the park, and promptly forgot that the feathers grow back.

One day - or night. Or morning. I don't really know and don't care to experience it again - an unholy shriek yanked me out of bed by the ear and sprawled me on the floor. Obviously a serial killer had decided to eat someone alive outside my bedroom window. I lurched to the window and tried to peek over the sill without giving any one a clear shot.

Nothing.

I crawled back into bed, shaking. It was very, very dark. I was very, very tired. And that damn peacock, who was sitting on the spot of roof above my bed, let out their characteristic "HEEEEYYYYYYYOOOUUUUUUUUUUU!" Well. I knew it wasn't a serial killer then. What sort of idiot serial killer would sit above the scene of the crime and call out to all and sundry? At 90 decibels, no less.

I charged out into the hall, only to join forces with my sister charging up from the other end. We rounded the corner in tandem, and burst out the front door. (It was this bang, interestingly enough, that woke up my parents. I think that was the first positive proof that my dad was a master of selective deafness.)

The collective glare aimed at that peacock should have roasted him on the spot. He remained unimpressed. After all. He was on the roof. And more beautiful than the entire 3am crowd to boot. Rocks, guava, sticks- they all had no effect. It would have helped if our aim wasn't atrocious.

Mom finally solved the problem with the high pressure garden hose. The bird decided to sulk in the back yard, and was collected by a little man in a white golf cart later. I heard that 5 total got out. But it wasn't until Ben got involved that they all disappeared...