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Thursday, August 13, 2009

The bird that caught a ride to work


Animals are just getting plain lazy.

I was sitting under the overpass to get on I-80 on my way to work when a bird landed on the back of my car (you can see the bird's tail in the above picture). I looked in my rearview mirror and made eye contact with the driver behind me who was smiling. I shrugged. She shrugged. The light turned green and off I went, assuming my feathered friend would fly off the car.

He didn't.

As I accelerated up the on-ramp the bird held tight. By the time I was starting to merge onto I-80 I was doing about 45 mph.

50 mph.

55 mph.

The bird was flapping and flailing in the wind but wouldn't (or couldn't) let go.

60 mph.

65 mph.

Impressed at the strength of the bird's talons, I snapped the picture.

70 mph.

It finally fell off.

I heard it and watched it in my mirrors. The poor guy rolled down the back of the car, off to the shoulder of the road (thankfully), tumbled a couple times and, if I wasn't mistaken, stood up.

Fortunately, it looked like the pigeon may have been OK despite the fact that it was traveling at speeds no pigeon ever traveled before (Rob, correct me if I'm wrong here).

Unfortunately, it didn't make it all the way to downtown, which I can only assume was its final destination since it landed on my car and that's where I was going.

Really unfortunately, the stupid bird scratched up my car.