Why it's a bird free zone

I am afraid of birds. Stop laughing, I can hear you.

It is an irrational fear (thus the ornithoPHOBIA) that has plagued me all my life. My mother tells the story of how she kept a stuffed bird from a flower arrangement to use as a baby gate in my infancy. Place Fake!Bird at the entrance to the living room, and The Ornithophobe will let you vacuum in peace and quiet. I recall abject terror at those little singing bird ball ornaments in Christmas trees; get too close to a tree and they'd go off, sending me scurrying the other direction. I've been locked in my car by a bird on the hood of it. I've been stuck on the sidewalk unable to get home, with a bird a few feet down the pavement.

There is no place on the planet I can go to escape them, a fact made plain to me in elementary school. I was devastated to learn they literally are everywhere; there is no continent on the planet free from their menace.

And make no mistake; it is MENACE. That "They're more afraid of you than you are of them" is nonsense spouted by people who have no idea what they're talking about. The birds know I fear them, and they behave accordingly. They dive bomb my car when I'm driving. They sit motionless at my approach, daring me to run them off. The clapping of hands, making of noise, shouting of "shoo! Get! Damned bird" means nothing to them, they just sit there and look at me, as if to say, "My, how interesting. She is AFRAID of me. This has... possibilities."

They flutter. I hate fluttering. They flap. And I hate flapping. They have beady, evil little eyes and sharp, predatory faces. Even the simplest finch looks threatening to me.

They poo everywhere. The world is their toilet. Bright streaks of purple and white airborne crap left inevitably upon newly washed cars and laundry. I have surrendered this battle in the war; I haven't washed my car in a year. So far, it seems to be working. The enemy prefers a cleaner target.

They are filthy, disease-ridden, disgusting animals.

On top of that, they twitter annoyingly at ungodly hours of the morning, an infraction surely deserving of the most stringent forms of punishment. It should be illegal to trill birdsong in the wee hours of the morning, when it is still dark. Unfortunately, birds don't cotton to the laws of men, even when they are good and sound laws about noise pollution.

On the other hand, however, there is poultry.