Another fun blog about writing and life. I love the beach- the ocean, the sand, sights, sounds, and those adorable birds who run back and forth with the waves to catch little nibbles of the ocean’s offerings for lunch.
You know the fowl of which I speak – Johnathan Livingston Seagull…cute little buggers.
They get real excited when people throw bread and other people-junk to them.
I’ve always been interested in their sense of community. You’ve seen them, if you’ve ever been to the beach. They stand in a formation, all of them facing the same direction. They communicate so well, you can practically hear them, but you really just see the results.
But…I have seen the dark side of those seemingly adorable creatures. They watch us. They watch our movements, especially if we indicate in any way that we have…FOOD.
So, I’m lounging on the beach, my toes in the sand, the sun warming my legs, the breeze …well anyway, I wanted a snack. I pull out my store-bought cheese and cracker package and apparently I made the magic noise. Seagulls know a Keebler wrapper by its sound.
One second I’m holding a cracker between my thumb and forefinger, and the next it is gone. I’m stunned. My fingers are still in position, as if they are holding a cracker, but it’s not there.
So let me give you the slo-mo version of what happened. I unwrapped the peanut butter and cheese cracker package and extracted one cracker. The cracker was slowly moving toward my mouth via my two fingers. Little did I know that my movements were being eyeballed by a sneaky seagull with a plan.
He suddenly whisked around the back of my friend, then took a slight left toward my face, whacked his hard wing against my cheek, thereby viciously distracting and stunning me. I truly didn’t know what happened for a few seconds. I was staring at my two fingers, still together as if they were safely holding a cracker. “Hey! Where’d it go?”
Wouldn’t you ask the same?
If I hadn’t closed my eyes, as we often tend to do when something flies toward our face – except for baseball players, and other ball related sports – I would have been looking that thief in his sneaky little eye.
Think about that…his right eye would have been ready to stare me down. He was a bold little fowl in more than one way. He is the same feathery fiend who returned to the scene of the crime to hover around for a long while, waiting for another cracker opportunity.
So, take my advice. When you are relaxing on the beach and those adorable seagulls are hanging around, remember – “If Polly wants a darn cracker, and you have one, cup that thing in your hands and eat it whole.”
Have a great day
Brenda
Contact me at BrendaDrexlerAuthor.com
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