To Kill a Mockingbird

Photo by TexasEagle via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Our house has a mockingbird problem. I want to kill this mockingbird.

Harper Lee may have already written this book. But let me tell you that a lobotomy will never do. It is not severe enough.

The only acceptable punishment for being a mockingbird is death.

See, the mockingbird who calls our yard home, is a party animal.

This dude likes to start his singing at about midnight and rock that party until the break of dawn.

And his party is loud. Like 100+ decibels loud. So loud it will wake you up from a dead slumber and keep you awake for hours, thinking of all the ways you could kill him.

  • A dart would be fun. Not a pretty one, either. Like a dart which a child played with in the 1950s and I would buy from a garage sale. Dull and rusty would do the trick.
  • Since our mockingbird hangs out at the top of the tree, I’ve actually plotted tossing our cat up there. She would certainly kill him. But would need a surprise attack. Like a catapult. Or trebuchet. I would take great pleasure in both the flinging of our cat gently onto his roost… and watching her kill this loud monster.
  • Like the Lorax, I have thought that I could rid myself of this problem by cutting down anything taller than 2 feet.
  • Craigslist. Surely, if I put an ad on Craigslist, someone will have a female making noise in their yard. Forget eHarmony, she’s a perfect fit.
  • I’m looking for a mockingbird recipe. Now I know why all of the recipes for Mockingbirds also involve the word “tequila.” If you have one in your backyard the only way to sleep is to drink oneself blind and pull your sombrero over your head.
  • Perhaps this is a business idea? I could buy an island. Then hire a band of bird wranglers, led by Jack Colton from Romancing the Stone, who would rid our nation of these noisy pests for a fee. We would release them on the island to sing and mate to their hearts content. I could probably even sell the idea to Animal Planet for a reality show. Mockingbird Island: From Pest to Profit.

Moving is not an option. This bird would merely follow us. It’s there to mock us. We lay in bed at night searching our souls. We wonder, what have we done to deserve the mockingbirds presence?

The bird, and its incessant intolerable noise, must die.

Comments

8 responses to “To Kill a Mockingbird”

  1. Adam Avatar
    Adam

    I have a friend that took out bats in his attic with a blow gun. Accurate, silent deadly. Just an idea.

  2. Lars Rood Avatar

    Adam- That made me laugh. Last time we stayed in your part of the US we slept with our window open so we could hear the birds in the morning. I’m assuming the gentle chirps we were hoping for are nothing compared to the noise you are having to listen to. Good luck. I was actually waiting for you to turn this into an analogy for the church but was quite glad when you didn’t. I say give Paul a Daisy Red Rider bb gun.

  3. Erin Desautels Avatar
    Erin Desautels

    Perhaps a paintball gun or a bow and arrow. I’m sorry to hear you have a party bird at your house. It must be jealous it missed out on the Carlsbad vacation!

  4. Ginny Avatar
    Ginny

    Dark and funny. I especially like the tossing cat/catapult idea, although I’m of the school of thought that the only good cat is a flat cat.

  5. adam mclane Avatar

    @ginny- I’m not a general cat-loving person. But I like our cat a lot. She kills rodents and lizards in the yard. And somehow she also killed a hummingbird last week. I think a mockingbird is within her range.

  6. marko Avatar

    seriously, we have one also. my wife likes it, which is just baffling to me, since the thing only seems to fire it up when we turn our lights out. if there were some food or beverage that were particularly tasty to mockingbirds and only mockingbirds (because, you know, i am a peaceful man, and desire no harm to any creature other than the mockingbird), that i could lace with something lethal, i would so go there.

  7. Barb Brinker Avatar
    Barb Brinker

    I hate to bring you bad news, but they don’t die until they are about 15 years old. How about a ‘super soaker sneak attack 4-way’ it sprays 33 feet. If that doesn’t work, I say hire a hit man.

  8. Jeff Goins Avatar

    I wonder how much organic traffic of very disappointed literary-savvy surfers you’re going to get on this post…

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