Bird Sh-t, Locker Nazis, and Epic Sweating

I had a weird day, y’all.

It started with this itty bitty little bird who had a strange preoccupation with my car. I watched from the kitchen window as he set up shop on the tiny ledge where the passenger window meets the passenger door. Cute, right? I suppose, until he started in on the passenger-side mirror. He gave it the eye for a bit as if getting up the courage to approach, before suddenly taking off like a bat out of hell straight toward it. And though it’s a pretty short flight (let’s call it four inches), he got up some serious speed and crashed into the mirror time and time again.

I watched this spectacle in utter disbelief for like five entire minutes before finally going outside to get a closer look, which prompted the little son of a bitch to fly away. That’s when I noticed the copious amounts of bird shit that adorned that tiny little window ledge of the passenger-side door. He’d somehow managed to get his shit all over the mirror, too. Convinced the weird escapade had ended, I went back inside, but right after I did, he returned, gently landing on the mirror, then craning his head to the left and then to the right to make sure the coast was clear.

Once certain it was, he fluttered back to the same spot on the window ledge then started, once again, eying the mirror before, once again, relentlessly and repeatedly banging the shit out of the mirror. I was all like Damn, Bird, you could at least take the thing out to eat before having your way with it, when I noticed the triplets were watching the strange scene from behind me with silent awe, their little faces registering that telltale look I think we’ve all seen toddlers wear whenever they witness a bird assaulting a car as if it were equal parts porta-potty and two-dollar whore.

Sadly, I decided to document this surreal display, as if I didn’t have anything better to do than to watch this bird as he made amorous moves on my passenger-side mirror while simultaneously and haphazardly flinging his fecal matter about. I’ll be sure to post the video once I do a bit of editing, as I’m quite certain my compelling narrative has you all wanting more.

But for now, all you really need to know is that this feathered freak show cost me a solid twenty minutes. Which meant that I got a late start in heading to the Y where I planned on running five miles on the treadmill before getting a deep tissue massage at 12:30.

Why the massage, you wonder? I’ve got a four-day, 50-mile backpacking trip coming up and in order to prepare, I’ve stepped up the workouts, banging my body around like a horny bird might a car mirror. (Without all the defecating, of course.) Accordingly, my body is a bit out of whack, so I’ve been getting a few massages to help work out the kinks. My massages take place at the downtown Y, but I actually work out at the westside Y, which meant that today, for the first time ever, I’d be working out at a different Y.

Which was all well and good until I got into the locker room, where I immediately noticed a different locker room culture than the one I’m accustomed to at the Y which I frequent. Apparently folks are super possessive about their lockers at the downtown locale. To the extent that virtually every one I saw had a name neatly and conspicuously printed on it via something manufactured by one of those label makers that Jerry re-gifted to your grandparents. (Or was it George? Wait, sounds more like Kramer, but I digress…)

So I turn to a full-sized locker in the corner with no visible sign of ownership when a guy bumps into me while opening the locker right next to “mine.” (When I get a label, I’ll lose the quotes.)

“Sorry,” he said while stepping out of my way. “I’ve got my own locker, but it won’t hold everything, so I’m using this one, also.”

While super happy for this guy and his two-locker system, I was also a bit confused as to why such a fact warranted an announcement, much less what it had to do with our inadvertent contact. Chalking it up to one of life’s little mysteries, I made my way to the treadmills.

Remember that twenty minutes? That cut my run down from five miles to three, which was all just fine until I returned to the locker room and looked at my watch. I only had five minutes before I’d be late to my message, so I hightailed it in the shower (no label system there, I’m happy to report) and, once bathed, scooted back to “my locker” to change.

One problem. I was still sweating. Five minutes in front of the fan didn’t alleviate the problem. So now, I’m seven minutes late to my massage, which I desperately needed on account of my trip, yet I’m still emitting preposterous amounts of sweat like I’m on some bad Saturday Night Live skit, complete with those tiny sweat-simulating hoses rigged under my clothes. Only I don’t have those little hoses under my clothes, which essentially renders me a freak with an unparalleled sweating problem.

So I decide to gather my stuff and meet the massage therapist and explain what happened with the bird and all, before apologizing and canceling the massage on account of my untimely sweating issue, yet still offering to pay her, thereby not subjecting her to my disgustingly slimy, still perspiring, and salt-covered body. Only I never got that far because she thinks of me as that short, middle-aged, balding, neurotic guy who she sorta pities but also thinks is kinda funny and, as such, quickly comes up with a plan.

Knowing how important this massage is to my trip, she tells me to take off my shirt, but not my pants, and she’ll do my calves, hammies, glutes and IT band through my khakis, and that she’ll “just deal” with the grossness of my upper body, all while cranking the fan up to its highest setting and positioning it to blow on my back as I lay down on the table.

I chalk up her tolerance to my boyish charm, and, perhaps, to the fact that I’d thought better of mentioning the whole bird shit debacle. Just minutes into the massage, I totally stop sweating, and for the first time all day, I’m no longer upset about the foul fowl who deflowered my passenger-side mirror and the twenty precious minutes he stole from me. In fact, I’m no longer upset at anything at all, but instead uplifted by this young woman’s generosity and greatly encouraged by the fact that, despite the epic amounts of sweat, all my training has left me feeling better than I’ve felt in over a year.

But the good time buzz quickly ends at the conclusion of the massage when I get up to see a wet spot that my upper body has left on the sheets which cover the massage table that can best be described as shameful.

So I put on my shirt and shoes, then make my way out of the massage room to the counter to pay the wonderful masseuse, hoping to leave without further event. Which I manage to do, yet not before I see two men decked out in matching biohazard suits headed toward the massage room, presumably to clean up the toxic mess I’ve left behind.

I contemplate asking them if they ever deal with epic amounts of bird shit on car window ledges and or passenger-side mirrors before thinking better of it and heading along my merry way.

—Photo futureatlas.com/Flickr