Attack of the Kamikaze Cardinal

Years ago, pitcher Randy Johnson uncorked a fastball that through some cosmic freak occurrence nailed a poor bird on the fly on its way to home plate.



Yesterday, I played the roll of Randy Johnson. The ball? The Man Van.

The Man Van was so dubbed by the women of the TLC Creative team. Discovery was having an off-site workshop, and I was carpooling some of the guys up in my black Mercury Villager. And thus, the "Man Van" was born. It would actually later become the inspiration for one of TLC's Life Lessons figurines.

Unfortunately, it became a key player in another life lesson yesterday.

About half-way through my 15 minute commute to work, I'm driving about 50 m.p.h. as I pass my daughter's school, oddly enough, I see a red streak out of the corner of my left eye.

THUNK - THUNK

A male cardinal had swooped directly in the path of the Man Van, hit the front bumper, flipped up, slamming into the windshield directly in my field of view, and then rolled up and over the van.

I felt sick.

Now, I don't know what the odds are of a bird getting nailed in flight in that 60 feet, 6 inches between batter and catcher, but it doesn't happen every day. And I have to admit that the time I first saw it the view of feathers exploding and the absurdity of the situation made me laugh.

But now I know how Randy Johnson felt that day.

I can still see clear-as-day the image of that poor bird's wings and tail making contact with the windshield right in front of my face. The poor thing never saw it coming.

I've run over things before - squirrels, primarily. I usually feel bad, although squirrels and I have a history.

A few years ago, shortly after we moved into our new house in Rockville, we had one get into the house. Our best guess was that it fell down the chimney flue. I woke one morning, hearing a scampering of claws on our hardwood floors.

At first I thought it was the cat. When I looked down and realized the cat was sleeping on top of me, I'll admit I was a bit freaked out. The cat ended up cornering the rodent behind a couch, so I closed all the doors to the bedrooms (we had a basement ranch), opened the front door, with the hopes of herding the damn thing out.



That didn't go so well.

What I forgot to do was close the door to the laundry room and storage area down in the basement, so once I moved the couch, the thing ran downstairs and climbed up into the rafters between the first floor and the basement.

Two days and a $400 call to a humane trapper later, the varmint was caged up and relocated to friendlier confines.

It was lucky, too.

After the trapper left, I discovered a huge 4-to-5-inch hole at the top of my knotted-pine paneling where the wall met the ceiling.

So, needless to say, squirrels and I are not on the best terms.

I try not to hold the rest of his species responsible for his act of vandalism. I do jam on the brakes when I see one dart out in front me.

But this time, I had no chance. And neither did the cardinal.

Dropping a Deuce at 30,000 feet (or Changing a Diaper on the Poop Deck)

Screaming kids on a plane is bad. For everyone.

If it's your child, you want to die.

If it's someone else's kids, you wanna kill them. Or yourself. Or hope to God you packed your noise-canceling headphones.

Thankfully, on our Easter trip to see my dad, my children were not the screaming kids. In fact, all the kids (and there were a bunch) were nice and quiet.

However, on the flight home, the change in pressure did help my five-month-old son overcome his little tummy pain. And by "overcome" I mean he "overwhelmed" and "over-filled" his stage 2 diaper.

Yes, he was the stinky kid.

I've had to change diapers at 30,000 feet before, so I think, "No big deal,"right? I whisk him back to the lavatory before the aroma envelops the entire cabin, and look for the fold-down changing table that I had on that previous flight.

Umm... where'd it go?

I run up to the flight attendant who's handing out drinks. "Is there a changing table in the first class bathroom?"

"No."

"Crap." (literally)

So it's back to my seat with the little stinker. And thus the operation commences.

We're on the two-seat side of the aircraft, so I send my daughter over to my wife across the aisle and lay Sean perpendicular to the seat, with me kneeling in my seat, my feet to the aisle, bending over to extricate the offending substances.

Upon opening up the onesie, the true horror of the situation is revealed.

It's friggin EVERYWHERE.

We're talking complete diaper failure. It's down the legs. It's up the back. The boy must have been saving up for days. Picture Michael Keaton in Mr. Mom with the goggles and tongs, only I had no such armament.

In order to pull the feat off, I'm going to have to prep the area. Two diapers go down on the seat under him as a make-shift pad. Two wipes go on top for coverage. This is just so I can fold the onesie's flap down and actually try to clean the boy off.

Now my wife and I have always rated nasty diapers by the number of wipes it takes to clean it up. One or two is relatively easy. Five is pretty gross.

This one hit a dozen.

All the while, I'm trying to keep everything on my makeshift pad so as not to funk up the seat.

That worked until it was time to get the nasty onesie up and over his head. Had I scissors, I would have just cut the thing off like they do in an emergency room, sacrificing the article of clothing for the greater good. The darn thing is likely never coming clean anyway.

But no, it had to come up and over. And that just extended the mess up to his shoulders.

Son of a ...

So I get him cleaned up finally, scrub down the seat 'cause, well, there was no way it was escaping the carnage. I get him dressed into a clean footie. I looked around as I let my daughter back into her seat, and no one makes eye contact. That's probably a good thing.

I sit back down with the boy on my lap and within minutes...

He's out cold.

Apparently the ordeal took a lot out of him. (again, literally!) He slept the rest of the flight.

Air travel is hard enough with little kids. You think it wouldn't be too much to ask for a friggin changing table in the restroom?