The Case of the Crazy Crow

If my posts of late seem a little less regular than past trends would indicate, it is purely because I have been enjoying the good life for sometime now... good food, lots of TV and very little else. In plain words, I have just been too damn lazy to post anything. Another effect of the aforementioned "good life" is that there's not a whole lot going on in my life right now and if I were to start posting about it, I would soon have a lynch mob on my hands, which I am not a big fan of. So I have to revert once again to my childhood when the days were filled with untold excitement. And if you are thinking, "Oh no! Here he goes again... prattling about some inane tale about the time when he was a fat and stupid kid..." , you really couldn't be more wrong. This incident occurred before I got fat and stupid. At the time of this incident I was fatter and stupider. Anyways, these details are inconsequential to the story. So, here goes..

This incident occurred when I was no more than five, but the details are still very clearly etched in my memory and its only a miracle that I grew up to be a normal (smart, rational, intelligent and allround excellent) human being and not some raving psycho with anti-social tendencies after this traumatic experience. It was summer vacation time for me and my parents and I were visiting our relatives down at our native village on the west-coast of India. The village had all the trappings that make for an excellent rural experience... a river flowing through it, a small river beach, lush paddy fields, mountains in the horizon and even a tiny island in the middle of the river. Even as a kid I appreciated these small pleasures of life and settled very quickly into the rustic lifestyle of a country gentleman.

One day, as I was strolling in the courtyard munching on a piece of hard candy and generally admiring the peaceful life, I noticed a crow perched on a wall and generally not doing a whole lot... all this while chewing on the hard candy. To this day I don't know whether it was the hard candy that interested the crow or whether it just took offence to me staring at it, but the vile creature flapped its evil wings and made straight for me. The gravity of the situation didn't dawn on me until it was too late. And then, the stupid crow crashed into me sending me, him and the hard candy all to the ground. He then stumbled to his feet, looked around for a bit and flew off as if nothing had happened leaving me shocked and wondering what the hell had just happened. Excitement had come crashing into my rustic lifestyle... quite literally... I gathered the pieces of the fragmented candy and ran indoors. Rustic life and all that was good, but rustic life indoors, watching TV, was a lot safer.

That was my first brush with the animal kingdom. I have since had run-ins with dogs, house lizards, snakes and a psycho squirrel, which I shall not delve into at this time. The point is, the crow incident taught me early on to be wary of even harmless looking critters. Now my philosophy regarding misc. fauna is, "If it looks cute... beware. If it doesn't, beware anyways...." and to this day, it has not let me down... until later.. cheers.. 8-)