At first glance the little song bird I found dead in my front yard appeared to be another victim of cat-stalking in our neighborhood.  But upon transporting the tiny corpse to my garbage can, some of the maggots fell off, and I noticed an odd-looking projectile protruding outside of its beak.  It glistened in the sunlight and when I examined it closely, I saw it was a shard of clear plastic.

Airial view of some nice-looking maggots

Flash back to six days previous.  We had a little party at our house this evening, a retirement celebration for one of my wife’s close teacher friends.  It was a good party, maybe you would  classify it as a very successful one if you’re into scoring that type of thing.  In attendance were two of my good friends.  The three of us are spouses of teachers who regularly participate in  these social gatherings of educators, and we tend to tag along with our wives as long as we understand food and alcohol will be readily available.  We don’t get together often, so it’s normally a refreshing reunion.  We catch up on family stuff and activities, and since we all consider ourselves former jocks of one sort or another, we attempt to relive our jockdom by competing in various yard games.

A Hand holding a blue bocce ball

Bocce ball seems to be one of our favorites, and was our choice for this particular evening’s competition.

I have never figured out why, but these two douchnozzles are always accusing me of cheating.  Maybe it’s all the beer they drink, I don’t know.  But fuck, it gets annoying.  I have a printed set of rules right in my bocce ball storage bag, and I keep telling them to read the damn rules if they don’t believe me, but no, of course that’s not going to happen because that would mean some thoughtless interfering with their complaining.  It always reminds me of the first time I ever played this game.  That was over  20 years ago during an annual neighborhood Labor Day block party.  I came to hate those parties.  Most of the activity took place a whole block away at the far end of our street.  But when it came to the egg-toss, that event for some reason moved right in front of our house.  Sticky egg residue remained cemented in place for at least a week, attracting flies and stray, mangy cats and flee-bitten dogs, all lapping away at the shit and contributing to an overpowering stink-up in our front yard.

Anyway the one good thing about my first experience with bocce ball is all the complaining from my two friends pales in comparison to the complete pandemonium that ensued during my inaugural competition, and therefore I always take their complaints with a grain of salt.  I don’t recall all the particulars of the block party match.  It basically got out of hand when more and more people decided they wanted to play, and pretty soon the competitive nature of a few and the alcohol consumption of many led to a bocce ball crashing through a basement window and then that resulted in the owner of the basement window throwing a bocce ball at the contestant that broke the window, and then all of a sudden the game of bocce ball got scrapped  and in its place a way serious game of dodge ball broke out.  If you are unfamiliar with bocce ball, the actual balls used are made of dense hardwood,  stone, or even metal.  There are some plastic ones out there, but they are considered unprofessional and useless.  Kids might use them but that’s about it.  Adults only that day.  So you get the picture.  Several people departed from the revelry that evening with a variety of contusions, bumps and bruises, and one contestant quite possibly suffered a concussion.  I can’t say for sure.  He says he never bothered to get checked out.  But most of the neighbors think he started exhibiting some peculiar behavior shortly afterwards.  For instance, two bocce balls balls went missing that evening, and to this day he still wanders up and down the street asking if any of us have seen those bocce balls.  The next year a ban was placed on our block party bocce ball and as far as I know it has never been lifted.

Of course our bocce ball game last week was totally nonviolent, and the party, as I mentioned, seemed to go swimmingly.  All things considered, it was typical of our type of teacher gathering.  Or so I thought.  The next morning my wife and I found empty beer bottles in every kitchen cupboard and behind practically every kind of door in our house, an obvious attempt by my two friends at a sophomoric prank, the practice of which is dismissed by most before they exit college.  I am still finding beer bottle surprises yet today.  For me the supreme surprise was the one they stuck behind our mail-box door.  Our mail is conveniently delivered right into our house through a mail slot chute, and it is closed off by a small door inside the entry way.   When my wife opened that door, out fell a glass beer bottle that chipped the edge of a floor tile and shattered.  What a hoot!  Not so funny was my emergency room visit.  Somehow during the sweep-up process I missed a glass fragment that was embedded in the entry way rug,  and when I went to retrieve the mail  later I managed to step on it.  It was a pointed shard that drove itself home deep inside the ball of my foot, and after both my wife and I poked and prodded in extraction futility and used up all the gauze pads and paper towels we had in the house to staunch the bleeding, we gave up and went to an emergicare facility.  Turns out those assholes don’t take Medicare so I had to charge $185.00 to my credit card.  I left the facility with a clear understanding that friends can sometimes be dicks.  All in all it was a very painful experience.

Not nearly as painful as the death that poor little bird endured.  Flashback two weeks previous.  That’s two weeks previous to the first flashback I expressly requested you take.  Don’t fuck this up.  Since that so indicated time that I hope you grasp, a little song bird became a regular visitor in our back yard.  He must have sensed that I am a nature lover and an all around nice guy, and before long a fond bond of friendship was forged between us.  He followed me around everywhere, and would many times spend an hour or more a day  entertaining me with his beautiful, melodic caroling.  One of his favorite places to perch and  serenade me was atop our patio fan.  At left is a picture my wife  took of me giving him a gentle hug.

Fast forward two weeks.  If you did this correctly you are right back where we started.  I guess that’s not quite right.  You should  actually be back to where we started at the first flash back.  You might have gone too far forward, and then I will have to explain what happened that day.  There were a couple of really shitty moments that went on then, and I really don’t want to talk about it.  So you might have to back up a smidgen.  Just do the best you can.

As a topper, my two buddies “forked” my front yard.  In case you don’t know what that is, it’s what happens to your lawn when a couple of morons decide to plant plastic forks all over it.

Lawn Forking

I missed one during my removal routine, but did not miss it with the lawn mower the following day.  I assumed any pertinent parts were blown into my grass collector, but apparently that was not the case.  That seems to be a fact because of the spear-shaped piece that my beautiful, innocent song bird impaled his throat with after he mistook it for a shiny insect. My special little song bird sings no more.   I hope you guys are proud of yourselves!