Just my Luck!!

I have never actually sat down and watched the classic Hitchock horror, The Birds. But, after what they did to me on Monday, I think I understand why Big Alfred picked this particular classification of creature to be the malevolent force in his 1963 film.

It was a weekend I had been looking forward to for a while. On Sunday, myself, my brother and a heap of other boys from the town boarded a southbound bus to Dublin to see former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher’s 30 year anniversary tour of the band’s iconic debut album, Definitely Maybe.

Suffice to say, the gig was great and the craic was equal to it. There is something in the soundwaves that turns grown men into teenage cubs when they go to see the likes of LG, the result of which is usually a wicked hangover and a dented ego.

Sunday’s concert was no exception.

Anyway, the following morning, only about four hours after the fun had finished and the craic had concluded, I awoke in a Dublin hotel, my mouth like the proverbial junkie’s carpet, crawled out of my cot, choked down two almost-inconsumabley large painkillers, and, with the rest of the Comanche cohort, bid an unromantic farewell to our digs.

“I never want to see this kip ever again,” said one broken warrior as the lift lowered us towards the ground floor.

When we got onto the dusty city street, the tribe began to fragment. The women and children headed for a bite to eat, while the chiefs and warlords went straight to the pub for more pints.

I belonged firmly to the former, more cautious camp.

“Enjoy your beer, boys, I need a burrito,” I said.

Walking through the city in a daze, the hangover making the mild humidity feel as sultry as the springtime Serengeti, we weaved waywardly along the footpath, like a pack of abandoned, semi-starved strays.

All of a sudden, the drink-induced mist that shrouded my senses was punctured by a barrage of cursing and blinding.

“Dirty, rotten, hoaching…” exclaimed a familiar voice.

I turned to see my brother tentatively rubbing his hair, before looking towards the heavens in vengeful disgust, as if turning on the gods themselves.

Beaten down by last night’s excesses, I laughed lamely, shrugged, and reassigned my resources back to the task of not collapsing.

Then, about ten minutes later, while passing beneath a bridge, I felt the same unmistakable splat land on my own head.

“Awww, you have to be joking,” I said, as I nervously dabbed my dome, before examining my fingertips to see the rancid material that had been dumped upon it.

“Feathery, squawking, stinking sky-rats,” I said, before pulling yesterday’s t-shirt from my bag, soaking my head with a bottle of water, and almost scrubbing myself bald.

“Yous are two quare lucky boys,” said our supposed friend.

“Shut up, Kev,” I barked. “Don’t patronise me. That superstition was made up so that parents could offer some kind of consolation to their children on the rare occasion they got crapped on by a crow. I don’t need you, an adult, saying it to me, another adult. I can take a crapping and get on with it.”

As we walked about our nation’s capital, all I could do was hate every bird I seen.

I glared at one as it sat cockily, almost provocatively, upon the head ‘The Emancipator’, ready to befoul his noble bonnet.

Sick of them, I decided to take sanctuary in the bus station until eventually a northbound carriage with a few free seats became available.

“You’re very late,” said an unnecessarily indignant ticket-tearer, as we tried to get on the bus.

“Sure it’s five to four and the bus doesn’t leave to four,” someone calmly protested.

“You should be waiting at your gate ten minutes before your bus is due to depart,” your man doubled down.

“Just ignore him and get on the bus before one of us ends up in Mountjoy,” said one of the boys.

We swallowed our pride and did as instructed. Three hours, ten stops and about 150 micro-snoozes later, we arrived back at Omagh bus depot.

We disembarked, chatted for 30 seconds, and agreed that it would be best for everybody’s health if such a convivial get-together did not occur again for at least three months.

When I got home, I threw open the door, fired my bag on the floor and sauntered towards the refuge of my bed.

When I opened the door, who was waiting for me?

Oh yes, Sergeant Starling of the Avian Airforce, and him dropping bombs like it was 1945.

“I’ve never understood why people go shooting, until this very moment,” I whispered, as, peeping through a crack in the door, I watched him alight – and defecate – upon a book at the head of my bed.

I burst back into the room, cracked open a widow, bailed out the door, and waited…

————————————

Twenty minutes later I went back to check if he had flown his newfound coup, only to see him still perched upon his throne.

“You’ve left me with no choice,” I said, eyeing him through the ajar door.

Five minutes later, Tweety Pie had been ensnared within a towel, transported downstairs, and released into the wilds of Omagh.

I wish I could say it was from my own hands that he took to the skies. However, all credit has to go to my aul’ boy. Turns out my bottle deserts me when it comes to birdcatching.