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clarkkent
Posts: 51
The rain has cleared and left only shiny streets and the wonderful smell of a rain just a day away. I decide to trot over to a gas station that is only a few blocks away, and slip in the door. I am not sure of what exactly my winged friend needs for food, but given my veterinary education from the Discovery Channel and PBS, I know that birds like to eat worms, other wise there would not be sayings that say so and amazingly close video footage of mother birds feeding baby birds these slimy creatures. With this in mind, I ask the young man behind the counter where the live bait is stored. He unfortunately knows of no such “nightcrawlers,” and suggests I head over to the pet store downtown, not too far from yesterday’s second home, Rombasky’s.
I trot away from the gas station, suddenly sure that it would have been a mistake to buy some worms in a Styrofoam container hiding in the back corner of a dirty convenience store that bears the name of some national chain. My feet hit the pavement, I walk quickly and with direction, for now I know that my little red friend will do no better than to dine from the grub supplied by someone who knows exactly what kind of food he desires.
The streets are wet, as they were during walk yesterday; however, today there is no rain adding to the puddles, only sun subtracting from them. The streets have that amazing glazed look like in the movies as the sun rises higher and higher. The sun combined with the spring air happily encourage quite a few animals from the avian world, and my eyes and mind are keenly focused on their every move. A robin zooms through my gaze ahead of the sidewalk, lands gently tree branch and merely sits, carefully recording my every move as I stroll on by. My suburban sidewalk has become a zoo of sorts, animals which before I never really took notice of are now catching my eye. I have my injured redhead to thank for the newfound appreciation.
I turn the corner, enter the splendor of the small downtown where I became so familiar with the cold pavement yesterday, and I attempt to spy this pet shop that has eluded my gaze throughout my residence in this town. There are many windows here with paint and signs and declarations of great products, but there is one set of windows in particular with nothing but piles of shredded newspaper with cute little take-me-home-with-your-groceries puppies hiding underneath. My pet shop has been located.
Pushing against the old wood frame door, it pushes back with more effort than I originally planned, making me wonder how many people actually have done the same thing, since repetition of such a motion usually would loosen an old door like this. A bell jangles above my head as I enter, confirming my suspicions that the regular customer to this establishment is not all that regular. Inside, there are rows of cages and tanks and every form of contraption to keep something somewhat wild in and keep untamed human digits out. The floor to this place is ancient, wood planks that have seen much more time than most of these animals. The wood floor almost has that shiny rounded look, like cobblestones that have felt the soles of many feet. The front counter lies deserted as the mid-morning street outside, an occurrence that should have changed with the jangling of that friendly bell, I would have thought. I lurk around the store a bit, making special note that my actions will definitely seen as lurking, so that if anyone happens to see me before I see them, they will most definitely ask me if they can be of any assistance, in order to stop the seemingly annoying action of lurking. I scan rows and rows of animals, from hamsters to fish to gerbils to parakeets, but unfortunately I am unable to find any of the human kind, save my reflection in the glass of the tank. The noises of the place make it feel very much like a pet shop, bubbling fish tanks, squawking birds, and scurrying creatures. It smells like a pet shop as well, due to the inhabitants, the cedar shavings lining many of the cages, and the wood floor that has been around longer than any of the living creatures who make this place home, including the long-lived turtles. I reach the end of one of the rows, and in the corner there is a large man sitting in an old yellow reclining chair contently snacking on an over-filled peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
“Oh….hhhhello,” he says with a mouth slowed slightly by the stickiness of the deliciously excessive chunky peanut butter. I almost wish I was the milkman here with a fresh delivery, just so he could more easily solve the current speaking quandary troubling his chops.
“I need some food for my bird,” I spout out proudly, realizing how ridiculous this sentence would have sounded if I had heard it only a day or so earlier in different circumstances. The man clearly hears me, but his size and the substance in his mouth are making it hard for him to get up and respond. He nods and mumbles something, then struggles to get out of the chair, waddling his body back and forth a bit to gain a little momentum, he throws his body forward to eject himself from the chair, a hastily eaten PB&J sandwich in one hand, bottle of some amazingly sweet carbonated beverage in the other. I hear some noises from him that could be construed as confirmations of my request, but I have no way of knowing that they weren’t related to the bout of physical activity that accompanied this man’s amazingly difficult rise from ground level to the upright position.
He heads slowly but surely to the counter at the front of the shop, where many different little canisters and bottles are stored on racks with easy access for the properly positioned employee. I am merely following behind without a clear view of the epic battle between tired jaw and tacky peanut butter, but I am positive the battle still rages, as the only thing I hear from the man are murmurs of noise in between an “Uh huh” and a hum. He is executing the positive pensive noises everyone uses, especially when words won’t do the moment justice. The pet shop owner sets down the overflowing other half of his sandwich onto a well placed napkin on the counter, and continues to chug down a cola beverage from a plastic bottle, a scene that somehow would be so much more nostalgic if that bottle were glass. I happen to notice that the half sandwich is overflowing with peanut butter, and yet lacking in its compliment of grape jelly. I wonder if this information will be useful to me anytime in the future.
“What kind of bird do you have?” he finally asks, spouting the question as if I will have a quick response, an interaction more common perhaps in a supermarket than in a pet store. Unfortunately, my appreciation of the avian world can only be described as short-lived so far, and I concede to myself that I will need a little help identifying the animal.
“To be honest, I’m not sure,” I dictate slowly, trying not to blow my cover, pretending that perhaps the care of this animal just fell into my lap, so to speak. “Do you have any pictures I could look at to perhaps pick out what kind it is, sort of like a police lineup?” I chuckle. My questioning is becoming even more ridiculous, even given my current familiarity with the situation. Plus, to refer to pictures of birds as a lineup is ridiculous indeed but worth a chuckle.
“Not really,” he responds with an unsure demeanor and no hint of bubbling humor. “We don’t really have a mail-order catalogue, so to speak. What you see is what you get,” he says, gesturing with his tree trunk of an arm at the collection that is this urban pay-as-you-go zoo.
“Oh,” I respond, slightly heartbroken that I won’t be able to identify the exact type of bird I now have so that he will get exactly the type of food he needs.
The worker senses my hesitation and slight disappointment, and tries to aid me in the direction I was originally headed. “You’re welcome to peruse our current selection of birds to see if you recognize the animal you’re looking for.” This is the best idea I have heard in the past five minutes. I journey around the store, peeking into cages of birds that look like all versions of parakeets and cockatoos, but nothing close to my wild animal. After I see nothing that looks like my prisoner at home, I return to the counter, where the large man with the girders for arms, who has been watching me closely the entire time, somewhat interested in my indecision. Perhaps his fascination is due to the lack of customers this morning; perhaps it correlates more with my unusual questions. I am unsure.
“I don’t really see anything that looks like the bird I have,” I say, and I feel like I am letting an officer down after an important lineup.
“Why don’t you try describing your animal for me,” he responds, giddy I’m sure at having such a novice to his world try and describe the features he likely knows so well.
“Oh, ok,” I utter, knowing that I am stepping into continually rougher terrain. “Well, he’s completely red with a pointy head, he has a bright orange beak and a sort of black mast surrounding it, with some slight black streaks near his wings.” I am surprised how well I remember my little friend after so little contact.
“Huh.” Silence halts his words for just a split second, as if he is experiencing some indecision or shock. “It sounds like you have a cardinal,” he says, and the tone of his voice contains a little bit of shock, like I am taming an animal that shouldn’t be tamed. “How did you catch the little guy? With a trap on your balcony or something?” I stare at him blankly, hoping that he sees my lack of attention for the question to mean that where I attained the bird is really of no consequence. For all I know, however, this man could have walked to or from work yesterday and seen my fallen frame in the alley, and passed me by. There is an awkward stretch of silence that follows his statement, probably no longer than twenty seconds, but in situations such as these, it feels like an eternity. It is these brief moments when time stands still that I, as man lost in his own imagination, like to see how long such a moment can last. So, I rarely break the crust with my own words, preferring to wait for the other party to do so, hoping each and every time the silences grown longer and longer, until all of the useless information we transfer via our words disappears, and only the most important of information is translated through the air to our ears.
And suddenly, after second after second of uncomfortable eye contact, full of perhaps a minute of that waiting game, full of little murmurs of half words, weight shifting uneasiness, and non-verbal communication, all waiting for the next phrase in this ridiculous conversation, the attendant disappears into a back room behind the counter. I smile to myself, somehow content that I’ve won this match.
I notice rows and rows of Polaroid pictures on the wall, as if every person who has bought a pet in this ancient shop has had their picture taken with their newly purchased friend. I cannot even begin to guess how many pictures are on the wall, but my fascination focuses more on the quality of the photos rather than the quantity. The wall is covered with picture after picture after picture of elated pet owners, a smile on each of their faces and some manner of domesticated animal in their grip. The pictures a framed so very well, with a large shot of each of the owners, and the animal, no matter how large or how small, always visible in each of the pictures. I am amazed at the quality that has come from a mere Polaroid camera, who’s subjects normally are distant figures in dark frames, barely visible to the viewer. These pictures, on the other hand, are magnificent.
I’ve heard that pet owners choose pets that reflect their own personality and appearance, and from looking at these pictures, I would assume that such might be the case. My eyes scan the photos as if I were looking down on a crowd from high above, dashing around, looking for something that sparks my imagination, fires my sense of familiarity. I hear the pet store player in the back rummaging through some shelves, finding some food that just might feed my winged accomplice.
My eyes float across the wall, darting, hovering, until I lock on a frighteningly familiar image. In one of the more worn and ancient Polaroids, I see the old man from the restaurant, residing in a younger set of skin, with a few more threads of hair on his bald head, and a few less millimeters of thickness in his heavy glasses. The picture reveals the state of his eyes at the time, bright and sunny, a world of possibility teetering precariously in front of him, as if all he has to do is step out the door and it will roll his way. He has a beagle in his arms, a cute little dog that fits the man perfectly, aimless direction in his eyes, living only in the moment. He is wearing the same jacket he wore at Rombasky’s, with a few years less of wear to its credit. And in the background, just out of focus and nearly out of reach of the limited Polaroid flash, sits his bag, worn as it was at the restaurant, closed as it was at the restaurant, and as intriguing as it was at the restaurant.
My head slides closer and closer to the picture until my nose is nearly touching the wall. I feel my eyeballs rotating in their sockets, scanning every inch of this Polaroid, trying to absorb every nuance before my birdseed is found and the picture and I are no longer alone. I can still hear the big guy mulling around back there, and as perplexed as I should be that he is taking this much time to get some bird seed, I am all the more enthralled in this picture. A fleeting thought begins in my head that the picture would somehow be better used if it were in my possession rather than on the wall. However, as a man who was once a child who broke into cold sweats when taking free candy from a tray, I have a hard time lifting the picture for my own benefit. Plus, the missing photo would leave a square blank in the middle of this collage, obvious to anyone that something that was once there is now missing. So, as intrigued as I am with the photo, by thieving hands return to my pockets, unsure why such minor devious thoughts even enter my head.
I trot away from the gas station, suddenly sure that it would have been a mistake to buy some worms in a Styrofoam container hiding in the back corner of a dirty convenience store that bears the name of some national chain. My feet hit the pavement, I walk quickly and with direction, for now I know that my little red friend will do no better than to dine from the grub supplied by someone who knows exactly what kind of food he desires.
The streets are wet, as they were during walk yesterday; however, today there is no rain adding to the puddles, only sun subtracting from them. The streets have that amazing glazed look like in the movies as the sun rises higher and higher. The sun combined with the spring air happily encourage quite a few animals from the avian world, and my eyes and mind are keenly focused on their every move. A robin zooms through my gaze ahead of the sidewalk, lands gently tree branch and merely sits, carefully recording my every move as I stroll on by. My suburban sidewalk has become a zoo of sorts, animals which before I never really took notice of are now catching my eye. I have my injured redhead to thank for the newfound appreciation.
I turn the corner, enter the splendor of the small downtown where I became so familiar with the cold pavement yesterday, and I attempt to spy this pet shop that has eluded my gaze throughout my residence in this town. There are many windows here with paint and signs and declarations of great products, but there is one set of windows in particular with nothing but piles of shredded newspaper with cute little take-me-home-with-your-groceries puppies hiding underneath. My pet shop has been located.
Pushing against the old wood frame door, it pushes back with more effort than I originally planned, making me wonder how many people actually have done the same thing, since repetition of such a motion usually would loosen an old door like this. A bell jangles above my head as I enter, confirming my suspicions that the regular customer to this establishment is not all that regular. Inside, there are rows of cages and tanks and every form of contraption to keep something somewhat wild in and keep untamed human digits out. The floor to this place is ancient, wood planks that have seen much more time than most of these animals. The wood floor almost has that shiny rounded look, like cobblestones that have felt the soles of many feet. The front counter lies deserted as the mid-morning street outside, an occurrence that should have changed with the jangling of that friendly bell, I would have thought. I lurk around the store a bit, making special note that my actions will definitely seen as lurking, so that if anyone happens to see me before I see them, they will most definitely ask me if they can be of any assistance, in order to stop the seemingly annoying action of lurking. I scan rows and rows of animals, from hamsters to fish to gerbils to parakeets, but unfortunately I am unable to find any of the human kind, save my reflection in the glass of the tank. The noises of the place make it feel very much like a pet shop, bubbling fish tanks, squawking birds, and scurrying creatures. It smells like a pet shop as well, due to the inhabitants, the cedar shavings lining many of the cages, and the wood floor that has been around longer than any of the living creatures who make this place home, including the long-lived turtles. I reach the end of one of the rows, and in the corner there is a large man sitting in an old yellow reclining chair contently snacking on an over-filled peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
“Oh….hhhhello,” he says with a mouth slowed slightly by the stickiness of the deliciously excessive chunky peanut butter. I almost wish I was the milkman here with a fresh delivery, just so he could more easily solve the current speaking quandary troubling his chops.
“I need some food for my bird,” I spout out proudly, realizing how ridiculous this sentence would have sounded if I had heard it only a day or so earlier in different circumstances. The man clearly hears me, but his size and the substance in his mouth are making it hard for him to get up and respond. He nods and mumbles something, then struggles to get out of the chair, waddling his body back and forth a bit to gain a little momentum, he throws his body forward to eject himself from the chair, a hastily eaten PB&J sandwich in one hand, bottle of some amazingly sweet carbonated beverage in the other. I hear some noises from him that could be construed as confirmations of my request, but I have no way of knowing that they weren’t related to the bout of physical activity that accompanied this man’s amazingly difficult rise from ground level to the upright position.
He heads slowly but surely to the counter at the front of the shop, where many different little canisters and bottles are stored on racks with easy access for the properly positioned employee. I am merely following behind without a clear view of the epic battle between tired jaw and tacky peanut butter, but I am positive the battle still rages, as the only thing I hear from the man are murmurs of noise in between an “Uh huh” and a hum. He is executing the positive pensive noises everyone uses, especially when words won’t do the moment justice. The pet shop owner sets down the overflowing other half of his sandwich onto a well placed napkin on the counter, and continues to chug down a cola beverage from a plastic bottle, a scene that somehow would be so much more nostalgic if that bottle were glass. I happen to notice that the half sandwich is overflowing with peanut butter, and yet lacking in its compliment of grape jelly. I wonder if this information will be useful to me anytime in the future.
“What kind of bird do you have?” he finally asks, spouting the question as if I will have a quick response, an interaction more common perhaps in a supermarket than in a pet store. Unfortunately, my appreciation of the avian world can only be described as short-lived so far, and I concede to myself that I will need a little help identifying the animal.
“To be honest, I’m not sure,” I dictate slowly, trying not to blow my cover, pretending that perhaps the care of this animal just fell into my lap, so to speak. “Do you have any pictures I could look at to perhaps pick out what kind it is, sort of like a police lineup?” I chuckle. My questioning is becoming even more ridiculous, even given my current familiarity with the situation. Plus, to refer to pictures of birds as a lineup is ridiculous indeed but worth a chuckle.
“Not really,” he responds with an unsure demeanor and no hint of bubbling humor. “We don’t really have a mail-order catalogue, so to speak. What you see is what you get,” he says, gesturing with his tree trunk of an arm at the collection that is this urban pay-as-you-go zoo.
“Oh,” I respond, slightly heartbroken that I won’t be able to identify the exact type of bird I now have so that he will get exactly the type of food he needs.
The worker senses my hesitation and slight disappointment, and tries to aid me in the direction I was originally headed. “You’re welcome to peruse our current selection of birds to see if you recognize the animal you’re looking for.” This is the best idea I have heard in the past five minutes. I journey around the store, peeking into cages of birds that look like all versions of parakeets and cockatoos, but nothing close to my wild animal. After I see nothing that looks like my prisoner at home, I return to the counter, where the large man with the girders for arms, who has been watching me closely the entire time, somewhat interested in my indecision. Perhaps his fascination is due to the lack of customers this morning; perhaps it correlates more with my unusual questions. I am unsure.
“I don’t really see anything that looks like the bird I have,” I say, and I feel like I am letting an officer down after an important lineup.
“Why don’t you try describing your animal for me,” he responds, giddy I’m sure at having such a novice to his world try and describe the features he likely knows so well.
“Oh, ok,” I utter, knowing that I am stepping into continually rougher terrain. “Well, he’s completely red with a pointy head, he has a bright orange beak and a sort of black mast surrounding it, with some slight black streaks near his wings.” I am surprised how well I remember my little friend after so little contact.
“Huh.” Silence halts his words for just a split second, as if he is experiencing some indecision or shock. “It sounds like you have a cardinal,” he says, and the tone of his voice contains a little bit of shock, like I am taming an animal that shouldn’t be tamed. “How did you catch the little guy? With a trap on your balcony or something?” I stare at him blankly, hoping that he sees my lack of attention for the question to mean that where I attained the bird is really of no consequence. For all I know, however, this man could have walked to or from work yesterday and seen my fallen frame in the alley, and passed me by. There is an awkward stretch of silence that follows his statement, probably no longer than twenty seconds, but in situations such as these, it feels like an eternity. It is these brief moments when time stands still that I, as man lost in his own imagination, like to see how long such a moment can last. So, I rarely break the crust with my own words, preferring to wait for the other party to do so, hoping each and every time the silences grown longer and longer, until all of the useless information we transfer via our words disappears, and only the most important of information is translated through the air to our ears.
And suddenly, after second after second of uncomfortable eye contact, full of perhaps a minute of that waiting game, full of little murmurs of half words, weight shifting uneasiness, and non-verbal communication, all waiting for the next phrase in this ridiculous conversation, the attendant disappears into a back room behind the counter. I smile to myself, somehow content that I’ve won this match.
I notice rows and rows of Polaroid pictures on the wall, as if every person who has bought a pet in this ancient shop has had their picture taken with their newly purchased friend. I cannot even begin to guess how many pictures are on the wall, but my fascination focuses more on the quality of the photos rather than the quantity. The wall is covered with picture after picture after picture of elated pet owners, a smile on each of their faces and some manner of domesticated animal in their grip. The pictures a framed so very well, with a large shot of each of the owners, and the animal, no matter how large or how small, always visible in each of the pictures. I am amazed at the quality that has come from a mere Polaroid camera, who’s subjects normally are distant figures in dark frames, barely visible to the viewer. These pictures, on the other hand, are magnificent.
I’ve heard that pet owners choose pets that reflect their own personality and appearance, and from looking at these pictures, I would assume that such might be the case. My eyes scan the photos as if I were looking down on a crowd from high above, dashing around, looking for something that sparks my imagination, fires my sense of familiarity. I hear the pet store player in the back rummaging through some shelves, finding some food that just might feed my winged accomplice.
My eyes float across the wall, darting, hovering, until I lock on a frighteningly familiar image. In one of the more worn and ancient Polaroids, I see the old man from the restaurant, residing in a younger set of skin, with a few more threads of hair on his bald head, and a few less millimeters of thickness in his heavy glasses. The picture reveals the state of his eyes at the time, bright and sunny, a world of possibility teetering precariously in front of him, as if all he has to do is step out the door and it will roll his way. He has a beagle in his arms, a cute little dog that fits the man perfectly, aimless direction in his eyes, living only in the moment. He is wearing the same jacket he wore at Rombasky’s, with a few years less of wear to its credit. And in the background, just out of focus and nearly out of reach of the limited Polaroid flash, sits his bag, worn as it was at the restaurant, closed as it was at the restaurant, and as intriguing as it was at the restaurant.
My head slides closer and closer to the picture until my nose is nearly touching the wall. I feel my eyeballs rotating in their sockets, scanning every inch of this Polaroid, trying to absorb every nuance before my birdseed is found and the picture and I are no longer alone. I can still hear the big guy mulling around back there, and as perplexed as I should be that he is taking this much time to get some bird seed, I am all the more enthralled in this picture. A fleeting thought begins in my head that the picture would somehow be better used if it were in my possession rather than on the wall. However, as a man who was once a child who broke into cold sweats when taking free candy from a tray, I have a hard time lifting the picture for my own benefit. Plus, the missing photo would leave a square blank in the middle of this collage, obvious to anyone that something that was once there is now missing. So, as intrigued as I am with the photo, by thieving hands return to my pockets, unsure why such minor devious thoughts even enter my head.
tank you veddy much
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