So, yesterday, I’m sitting at my desk. Writing Chapter 7 of my book. I hear some rustling from the fireplace (yes, for some reason my apartment has a fireplace — I’ve never used it for fear of burning the building down and being responsible for at least six or seven deaths). It sounds like maybe someone’s cleaning something out upstairs. How should I know.

Suddenly, however, what should pop out of my fireplace but…

A FUCKING PIGEON

I’m sorry, but the profanity is necessary. It was like my own disease-infested, feather-covered, off-season Santa Claus.

It was a battle of wits, but I’m proud to say it only took me 15 minutes to prevail. The bird did a minimum of flapping around and managed to cause no damage — though, that’s mainly because I took lamps and picture frames and other delicate things off tables before it had a chance to crash into them.

I tried to get it to go out into the hallway — a bird in the hallway is not my problem, it’s a tragedy of the commons — but mainly it chose to bang into the one window I couldn’t manage to prop open.

Eventually, however, I managed to chase it to the correct window. After perching just inside of that window for about a full minute contemplating whether it really wanted to leave, it finally left me be.

Anyway, that’s 15 minutes of work on my book (20 if you count this blog post) that I’ll never get back. I’m just glad I was there when fate threw together my apartment and a pigeon. That would have sucked to come home to at 8 p.m.

The pictures above are the best I could manage with my Treo as I defended my property.

PSA: Remember to close your flue — even if you’ve never opened it.