A bird told me.

They say that having a bird poo on you is good luck. But let me tell ya, I should have accumulated quite a bit of luck by now, and I'm pretty sure all I have to show for my encounters are mental scarring and a few dry heaves.

I'm not sure why it keeps happening to me; the odds are pretty slim of getting struck in the first place. Of all the land surface, of all the shiny cars and statues, of all the OTHER people, it's pretty much like winning the world's shittiest lottery. Pun oh so intended.

What I am convinced of, is that each time it has happened, it has been not only intentional on the bird's behalf, but that somehow the bird dropped it's load on me when it knew it would be the most inconvenient, most humiliating, or most disgusting moment to possibly do so. These birds that keep getting me - they are bastards with some sick sense of humor. Actually, to be fair, if I were a bird, I'd be high-fiving them for their creative delivery.

My first (memorable) encounter was at the age of 10 or so. My family and I were leaving the Magic Kingdom and walking back toward our car. The sun was setting, my feet were burning, I was exhausted and just wished SOMEONE would carry me. My parents and sister kept trekking through the parking lot, hurrying to find our car and get into the air conditioning. I dragged my feet and whined and complained, falling farther and farther behind them. When I looked up again, my family were almost out of shouting distance. "Come ON you guys! WAIT UP!" I shouted. As I spoke the words "wait up" I made a palms out gesture, ala 'FOR THE LOVE OF GOD'. At that exact moment, what appeared to be a giant dog turd of impressive size and weight plopped into my hand. And it was juuuuuicy. I looked up to see a flock of flamingos flying away, laughing at me and high-fiving eachother. And I kid you not about calling this poop dog turd-esque. There might as well have been a flying Labrador.

This incident is particularly ingrained on my mind because of what came next:

I ran, screaming, toward my parents (it turns out having a hefty flamingo turd land in your hand delivers quite the energy boost even when in the throws of heat stroke). When my parents surveyed the "package" in my hands they were understandably confused. When I explained it came from a flamingo fly-by, my horrified mother turned my hand over, ridding it of 90% of the poo, AND THEN WRAPPED MY HAND IN A SANDWICH BAG. I had to keep my hot, sweaty, poop-tainted hand in a freakin GLAD ziplock ALL THE WAY HOME, until we were around soap and water.

Flash forward to a couple years ago. My husband and I took our son to Indiana Dunes for his first beach experience. We had a great, picture-perfect day.

picture-perfect evidence of said picture-perfect day, taken mere moments before the offense.

Of course the only problem with the beach is there's sand everywhere. That, and the lake most definitely contains dead body juices, a paranoia I thought was one that I alone had until I recently discovered otherwise.

As the sun began to set on our day and we began getting ready for the drive back home, I decided it was time for my sand-cleansing dip. This basically consists of carefully wading into the lake...just far enough in so that you're not rinsing off all the sand with churning sand-water, and not so far that you might touch something dead or feel that sickening part of the lake shelf where it suddenly disappears underfoot. Essentially, I see this portion of the day as trading in my fear of dead body juices for the elimination of feeling ass sand the entire way home.

The sand rinsed from my hair, my body, and fist fulls of unexplainable small rocks emptied from my bathing suit, I carefully exited the lake, carefully walking so as not to kick sand back up onto my wet legs, and then I stood there, air drying, not touching anything, so that I could re-enter the car clean (dead body juice particles notwithstanding.) The air-drying took a while. It's a delicate dance, what with folding towels, picking up babies, and staying clear of my dachshund who not only obsessively digs from the moment we arrive until we leave, but who also eats so much of the sand that she literally poops sand castles for days.

You know what's coming. All things gathered, all things clean and dry, as we made our way back to the car a flock of dozens of beach-trash-eating seagulls flew up all around me like a tornado and RAINED THEIR POO UPON ME. I was PEPPERED with poo. Poo that was from the dirty sea-pigeons, who no doubt had spent the day feasting on dead fish, litter in the local Super KMart parking lot, and a dead body somewhere in the lake. They flew away, laughing and high-fiving each other.

What came next was almost equally as bad. I had to strip and take a shower in the Indiana Dunes public bathroom. It's dark, it's unexplainably slimy underfoot, and there's always a really awkward moment when you walk in and find yourself standing in close proximity with a totally nude person standing under a meager pee-trickle from a pool-style shower. I WAS THAT AWKWARD NAKED WOMAN. And now I understand why those people seem so oblivious and non-caring about their blatant nudity: how awkward would it be to make eye contact with anyone walking in trying to use the toilet and try to explain how you landed in this position? Best to just keep your head down and scrub.

Last year, after a day at Sea World in Orlando, FL, we began making our way back toward the parking lot after the end-of-night fireworks display. I guess it should have felt all too familiar and foreboding: the aching feat, the exhaustion, the heat stroke... But believe me, what was about to happen was the last thing on my mind. For one, I guess I didn't think being shat on by a bird really happened around midnight. I kind of would have thought they were all sleeping by then. Unless, I guess, they were kept up by say, a giant fireworks display of massive and epic proportions. As we shuffled along in our place in the sea of moving people, a flash of white appeared before my eyes and splashed all over the ground in front of me. It was as if there was someone perched in the palm tree above me dumping out a gallon of white paint. I wasn't hit by the initial dump - it was the splash back that got me. The height from which it fell produced an impressive bounce...and bounce onto me. I shrieked, I stopped, I shrieked some more, and as the dozens of tourists surrounding me realized why my feet, legs, skirt, and shirt were all splattered in white goo, they began TAKING PICTURES. Le sigh. I can't really blame them, since I might have done the same.

I never saw the offending bird, but it was obviously tropical, super huge, and laughing and high-fiving it's friends. I had to sit in traffic in the car for over an hour until I could clean myself off with something more substantial than a napkin. At least no one covered me in a GLAD bag.

My last story, and most recent, by now you've also guessed has to do with getting crapped on. This spring a robin built a nest near my back deck in the elbow of my drain spout. I was actually really into it, because up until this point, robins, sparrows, and other cute birds hadn't crapped on me. I thought maybe it was strictly tropical or water-bird related. I watched in awe as it's 4 babies eventually hatched, and as she ran back and forth dozens of times in a day to feed them. Last Saturday afternoon, I sat on my back deck taking a break from working in the garden to talk on the phone with my mother-in-law, who had called long-distance from Wales. As we chatted, I watched the mama robin fly back and forth from it's nest to the phone wire at the end of my yard. Then, it seemed to fly straight at me. It happened like it was in slow motion. I didn't miss a beat of the conversation with my mother-in-law, but definitely noted "wow, that bird's coming in pretty low", followed by "wow, that's a huge amount of shit dropping from that bird" followed closely by the horrible realization that that huge amount of shit was actually AIMED at me and dropped in a line from the bottom of my shirt, up my chest, up my neck, ON MY LIPS AS I WAS SPEAKING ON THE PHONE, and on up into my hair. I screamed, but it was kind of a weird sound, as I was trying to freeze my lips and keep them away from my teeth. It kind of sounded like Sloth from Goonies. The bird returned, laughing, to it's babies, whom all high-fived their mom. I must add that while I was at least at home and able to get into the shower, the most horrific detail (besides the lips) is that it was so....warm.

I wish these were the only poop incidents I was involved in... unfortunately there are others, but there somewhat more casual poops.

I conclude with the fact that this week, I saved a baby dove that was being pecked to death by a blue jay outside my office window. I'm hoping it grows up and becomes a sort of guardian-protector that wards off enemy fire. Having a sidekick dove would be an awesome conversation piece, and we'd high five whenever it pooped on my enemies.