A Bird in the Bathroom

So, as always, it's been a while since I last wrote. If only good intentions wrote blogs, huh?
In the last month since I've written, there's been one major occurance in my life: a bird in the bathroom.

The windows here don't have screens, and we don't have much in the way of air conditioning (or maybe it just isn't turned on. Who can say?), so I often leave just my bathroom window open. The bathroom is connected to the bedroom, but while the bedroom window is huge and completely open, the bathroom window is smaller and has iron bars curling over the window. It's always seemed much safer to me to leave the bathroom open.

However, I left it open all of one Sunday afternoon, and I headed out to church. I then spent the afternoon with Stephan, and when I came home at night, I went into the bathroom (which I'd left closed), and I closed the door behind me. I was getting ready to wash my face, when I heard something flapping around over head. I screamed and screamed without really looking at it. I was so afraid it would be a bat. But anyway, after a while, I calmed down, looked up, and saw that it was just a tiny bird--a swallow maybe. By this time, I wasn't so scared anymore--just frustrated. I opened the bathroom windows as wide as they could be opened, and started yelling, "Get out! Get out!" Dominique and Lexi who were both asleep downstairs (did I mention this all happened at midnight?) rushed upstairs to see if there was an intruder attacking me and eliciting these types of screams.

But soon enough, they saw the bird, and Dominique went out in the hallway and said, "Flip me. I can't do a thing. I just can't--birds--I just can't--"

Lexi was standing at the door laughing, but also unable to help.

So, Dominique did the only thing she could think of. She called her dad in London to figure out how we could rectify the situation. He suggested we try and catch it inside a garbage bag and then free it from the window. I didn't think this sounded too easy. His second suggestion was to try and guide it out the window with something else--a bat, a broom, something with a long handle. This sounded more up my alley. So, I found a co-worker's suit coat that she'd left at our office/house, and I tied it under my chin, grabbed the broom, and went running after the bird. I tried guiding it, but it didn't seem to want to be guided, so after a few discouraging attempts, the guiding turned more into batting, and next thing I knew, I'd hit the bird and it fell flat on the ground.

I felt horrible!

I grabbed a garbage bag, scooped the bird up, and tossed both the bird and the bag out the window. I felt so bad all night, thinking about how I'd killed the bird. And his feathers were still sort of stuck to the ceiling and walls where he'd flapped against the room.

So, the next morning, I got up, and went outside the bury the bird.

Guess what?

There was just an empty bag and no bird. So, I conclude that, in fact, the bird lived, and had only been stunned when I'd hit him with the broom. Great news, huh?