in which pigeons are slightly mistreated.

when waiting for the bus i noticed a Lady holding an alternating blue and white colored umbrella, which i noticed only because it was incredibly sunny. she held it not how you hold a tool, with a light grip, you know, easy going, but how you hold a weapon. her hand clenched tightly around that handle. she was Serious. i started to get nervous, trying to calculate what i might have done to piss her off and exactly how much it would hurt to get hit with an umbrella, when 4 pigeons swooped down and started their afternoon gravel-eating session. they barely had time to fit one sweet morsel of asphalt into their dirty beaks before the Lady opened her umbrella, whose alternating blue and white colors scared the shit out of the pigeons, and they flew to the other side.

this occurrence raises a number of questions about the Lady, by which i mean 2:
1) does she really hate pigeons that much? i mean, to most people they're just a minor annoyance. they don't ever really get that close unless you're next to the pigeon lovers when they decide to unmask their stale bread crumbs right as you're walking by, which can make things a little too hitchcock-y. i wonder what may have happened to provoke such hatred. maybe nothing happened, maybe she just fell on that side of the Pigeon Love Spectrum naturally.

2) how did she figure out the umbrella trick? i wonder if she tried out various tactics, like stomping or shouting, and they all proved less effective than she desired. i wonder what that moment was like for her when she thought, 'hey, i bet if i open this ragged umbrella in their faces if it'll scare them and they'll get the fuck away from me.' and if she felt all smart and accomplished because she figured out a practical and easy way to achieve the results she wanted. i respect that, just thinking about her going through her days getting more and more irritated at the pigeons, until one day she just had to start being proactive and taking the situation into her own hands. you know, refusing to be disempowered by your experiences. and such.

another plus for her was that she automatically had Bus Boarding Shotgun. no one that i was boarding with wanted to feel the wrath of the umbrella, so we all dutifully stepped back to give the Umbrella Lady as much fucking room as she wanted.