The second time I was attacked by a bird was 22 years later, while I was on a trip to Atlanta with a boyfriend (who later became my husband.
I had never been to Atlanta and one of the things I really wanted to see was the Margaret Mitchell museum. I’ve been somewhat obsessed with Gone with the Wind, the movie and the book, since high school, so I was very excited to go to the museum, which was the building where Margaret lived when she wrote the book.
Before going in to buy my ticket for the tour, I went to the gift shop and looked around a bit. When I asked where I could buy the ticket, the clerk directed me to go out in the courtyard and around to the ticket office. The clerk failed to inform me, though, about the killer mockingbird that lived in said courtyard.
Apparently, this mockingbird is extremely protective of its nest. I learned this fact when the mockingbird began dive-bombing me. I had passed too close to the nest, which just made this bird go shithouse crazy.
At first, I just felt something come close to brushing my head, but I had no idea what it was. For the next pass, the bird got a little braver and actually hit me in the back of the head. That time, I saw what was going on and, as with the previous bird attack, I almost crapped in my pants. I ran up the stairs out of the courtyard and he took another dive at my head.
After that, I screamed and ran and started swinging my purse around, but the bird could not be dissuaded. He continued his assault. I had no idea where to go, so when I saw some doors, I blindly ran as fast as I could to get inside. Thankfully, they were not locked and I narrowly missed another, possibly fatal, attack.
The doors led to the ticket office, and I tried to calmly go up to the desk to see when the next tour was. The guy there said a tour had just begun and I could join it by going out the way I just came in. I told them that I would rather not have to go back out there, as I had just almost been killed by a bird.
The guy chuckled and said that I wasn’t the first. This bird is actually famous for attacking people that get too close to its nest. He explained that they wanted to kill it, but due to some Georgia law, the bird was protected and, thus, allowed to continue its reign of terror at the museum. Then he made me pay $12.50 for my ticket. After all that, not only would I have to go back out to face my nemesis, they wouldn’t even give me a free ticket! Lame.
When I exited the ticket office, I looked around for Baron von Mockingbird. I saw him sitting on a fence on the other side of the courtyard... mocking me. I guess I can't be too mad at him. He was just doing his job, after all. I got as close to the opposite wall as possible and ran to where the tour was. Luckily, I had no further run-ins with the most overprotective bird ever.
Unluckily, though, when I joined the group, one nice little old lady announced to everyone that she had seen what happened outside; that she’d seen me screaming and running and waving my bag around. I didn’t mind, though, because I'm strong. I had survived yet another run-in with a bird hell-bent on my destruction.
I never understood why birds seemed to hate me so much, until a couple of years ago when I discovered that, according to Chinese astrology, my mortal enemy is none other than the rooster. Coincidence? I think not.
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