The Birding of a Prius

I feel like birds are slightly predatory. They’re always dive bombing boats in search of crumbs, stalking beach goers and their coolers, screeching and hollering for no apparent reason, and lying in wait above freshly washed cars.

There’s a wall of giant windows on the left side of my classroom, and I’m frequently distracted by the disturbing antics of the resident bird population. There’s a wily herd of dark little birds who frequent a leafless tree near the parking lot. Every day, they flock there in massive numbers and the desolate tree comes to life with the flutterings of sharp beaked creatures. It would be beautiful if it weren’t so scary and gross.

Do you drive a white Prius? If so, I sincerely hope it wasn’t your car that was parked under that tree. I’ve never seen so much bird manure IN MY LIFE! A dump truck filled with excrement would’ve been less effective than those birds. They must’ve gotten into some curdled sour berries because they birded ALL OVER your poor unfortunate car! They couldn’t have birded any harder if some joker had filled a local bird bath with mag citrate!

It was absolutely unbelievable. I automatically assume that, as a Prius owner, you’re environmentally aware and concerned about such issues as creature health, habitats and tree saving. If that’s true, I hope you went to that place in your heart when you came out to find this:

Or maybe you don’t care so much for creatures and tree hugging. You could’ve selected your car based on gas mileage for all I know. Either way, I would pay good money to know what was going through your head when you had to figure out how to open that car door without touching it’s drippy handle. You had to turn on your windshield wipers just to see out, and I had to laugh until my insides were sore and my classmates were concerned. Ahhhh good times.

The day before the birding, someone in class was whispering and giggling about a picture of their child with an alpaca. During a test, I might add. *massive eye roll* Obviously I didn’t get anything done for the next thirty minutes because ALPACAS! Here’s where I’m at: I’ve decided that if I ever adopt an alpaca I’ll definitely name it Llama. But then I got to thinking that maybe llamas and alpacas are the same animal. Nope. Google says Alpacas are much smaller and bred for their “luxury fibers”, and llamas are large and bred to be pack carrying animals. There’s also something about llamas being guard animals for alpacas, but I’m still not quite sure if that was interweb sarcasm or not. I like it. Don’t you think alpacas look like unfortunate teenage camels going through that terrible middle school awkwardness? Poor things! I couldn’t go through middle school again. My hair was SO bad!

Actually I’m pretty sure the natural state of my hair is something akin to the “luxury fibers” of an alpaca. That is to say that my baseline hairdo is the epitome of afflicted frizz. Over the years, I’ve developed a long, drawn out daily regimen of product and procedure that aftermarkets this awkward alpaca frizz into something resembling human female. Some days, if I hold my mouth just right, the stars align, and the barometric pressure cooperates, I can actually pull off a “style”. It’s magic, and I celebrate the accidental happiness of it every single time.

How do I do it, you ask? Well, it’s all about conditioning, my friend. Conditioner is the foundational hair product of all things curly. Did you know that there are people out there in the wide weird world who don’t and can’t use conditioner??? I had NO idea. My friend recently informed me that if she uses conditioner, her hair goes all limp and sad. It’s shocking to me, considering I basically dunk my head in Crisco on the regular. I can’t fathom an unconditionered hairdo. Then again, taming alpaca frizz is all I’ve ever known, and my straight haired friend was equally as shocked to know that people like me need to marinate in product.

I recently had a hair crisis that lasted three days. THREE. DAYS. I ran out of my favorite leave in conditioner which, as discussed, is step three, five and seven of my rigorous hair recipe. Without it, there is absolutely no hope. It’s impossible to look professional as a woman if there’s alpaca hair sitting on your head. So distracting! I went to replenish my dwindling stash but found that all the usual places were completely sold out. I had to go out of town with only the dregs of my old bottle to hold me over. Eventually I ran out completely and was forced to experiment with a new, untested product. It wasn’t pretty. It was a sad excuse for a hair product and frankly it should be ashamed of itself. May as well have been sea water for all the good it did. There’s a happy ending though, as I eventually found my faithful old product again at a random Wallgreens, under a full moon. Or something. I nearly kissed the cashier, but I held it all in, because that would be weird and we should really try to save up our crazy for those who already love us.

May your Saturday be filled with great hair, and completely void of birdings,

The Glittery Nurse