We've started the wishy-washy season where you need your coat on when you wake up but need short-sleeves by lunch. Thursday morning it was COLD in my apartment, and before leaving for work I pulled on my jacket and even dug my scarf out of the bottom of the drawer. When I got to the train station I looked around, and there wasn't anyone else wearing a scarf. In fact, there were a few men without coats at all, and women with open-toed shoes! I started to feel like a wimp and discreetly disrobed my neck, tucking the scarf into my bag. I thought that would be the most interesting part of my day, and I started imagining how I would relate it on the blog.
But, wait! I'm ME! Of course there were more interesting things in store! I arrived at work at the usual time. The teachers' bewitching hour came and went, and we were still down two teachers with no word. Both the director and I called one of them, and the moment we hung up with voicemail, one of the missing teachers walked in the door. Carrying. a. bird.
Yes. A bird. A wild sparrow she had picked up off the street because it was a baby and had clearly fallen out of its nest. I looked at her, incredulous. The children would be arriving in 15 minutes and what the heck where we going to do with the thing? Don't get me wrong, I have as bleeding a heart as the next person, but I also work in an environment where we have our NO NUT (or nut by-products, or anything processed on equipment with nuts) policy posted on every door to the building, and a hand sanitizer dispenser in the lobby to ward off lingering germs. I don't think a wild bird was going to pass the sterile test. She told us she wanted to call animal control to have someone put it back in the nest, and I urged her to take care of that immediately.
As I puttered around in those next 15 minutes helping teachers prepare their classes and passing out their hand-outs for the day, I went into this teacher's classroom and noticed a strange, fluttering sound coming from the cabinet. I opened it to find a concocted cage with the little bird inside hopping around. No, nooo, nooooo, absolutely not. I confronted the teacher to inform her that we absolutely could not have the bird in the building when the families got there. We came to a compromise that she would take the bird and its cage outside, and I would call animal control. The next thing I knew, it was five minutes until 9, families were on the verge of arriving, and a teacher approached me asking for the ladder. I pressed a little because I couldn't imagine why anyone would need the ladder right THEN and found out that the little wounded, baby bird had escaped during the transferring process and was now perched on top of the exposed ventillation ducts in the classroom. Great.
By this time, there was no hiding anything from the families. They arrived and eyed me suspiciously as I hauled the ladder from one end of the building to the other, setting it up, climbing up, poking around with the inflatable hockey stick I'd attached to the light bulb changer only to have the bird take off and start the process over. 45 minutes later when we had completed the preparations of our final strategy--attaching a trashbag with rubberbands to the broom handle like a butterfly net from a horror flick--, the bird (tired, I'm sure) landed on a window sill where I tackled it to the ground with my BARE HANDS! (Maybe not so much of a tackle as a gentle closing of my cupped hands, followed by the mild panic of having a wild bird entrapped in my cupped hands) I raced--without jiggling--out the door and to the park where I opened my hands to let the traumatized bird free under a tree. And the stupid thing didn't even touch the ground, it flew straight to a tree on the other side of the city! Baby bird who can't fly, I grumbled to myself as I stomped back into work to my to-do list now 45 minutes behind schedule. Some can't wake up without a cup of coffee. I never seem to have that problem.
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