El Pájaro En Mi Cocina

*cht*

...

*cht     cht     cht*

........

*cht   cht   cht   cht   cht*

...........................

*crash!bang!boom!flop!thud!*

...silence...

(Repeat the above at thirty minute increments throughout the day)

Señor CC: "What is that?"

Señora CC: "They must be working on the kitchen upstairs; I can
                  hear whatever they are doing in the ceiling."

Uh...seriously?

SERIOUSLY?!?!?

What was I thinking? I hear an-animal-is-walking-and-running noises and then falling-to-its-doom noises followed by flapping-and-climbing-like-life-is-about-to-end noises and I use my genius to say that someone is working on the kitchen above ours? Why yes, because IF they are indeed doing so, they would most certainly need to poke and prod DOWN into our kitchen, and more importantly, they would need to do so INTO the fan duct for our stove. Oh yes, indeed.

I obviously have very low standards for the so-called genius.

The handy-man began his work on the neighbor's kitchen sometime Sunday morning. That alone should have alerted me to the fact that it simply COULD NOT be a PERSON because aside from security personnel, no one like that even works on Sunday! NO.ONE.

We eventually decided it was a bird, by the way, and no I don't know how long it took me to figure that out. I would like to think that I was simply blocking that particular possibility out of my mind because then OH MY GOODNESS there is a BIRD in my house and it is STUCK THERE with no hope of escape!!!

So that we are all aware of the exact situation we were in, let me set up the day for you. Señor CC had loads of work this past week, and that meant that he was clickity-clacking in the living room *cough* hisoffice *cough* all the day long. I was making all attempts to assist his progress by *ahem* being quiet and by assisting Chewychomp in doing the same.

Around noon I left to pick up a friend, KS, to head out to the market. There are essentially two kinds of markets in Spain: the food market, and the everything-under-the-sun market. We went to one of the latter.

Off to Sabanillas we went, speaking only momentarily of el pájaro en mi cocina because Señor CC and I have convinced ourselves that it will certainly manage to get out in whichever manner it entered. All of you with more experience may present your collective "HA!".

No more than two hours later, we left. I drop KS at her place and then return to the drama. I should point out that I have pretty much forgotten that some poor bird is living out a nightmare in my kitchen, but that is neither here nor there because as soon as I got home I could hear it doing the flapping-and-climbing-like-life-is-about-to-end noises once again.

We have arrived at the active portion of the program.

I, the self-proclaimed genius-of-sorts (that sort being a far cry from the actual meaning of the word), began to dismantle the hood to the stove. I discovered a small plastic piece on the side of the fan encasement that, if removed, just may be large enough for our house guest to escape. While inspecting this piece of plastic, our newest resident did the falling-to-its-doom activity once again, and I could see it through a hole in the encasement! I COULD SEE IT.

 I!  COULD!  SEE!  IT!

I shouted to Señor CC, who rushed into the kitchen only to find that the tiny hole where I was able to see el pájaro is, of course, dark.

He.could.not.see.it.

What is a guy to do?

I am so glad you asked that! He is to tap on the fan encasement, scaring the living hoo-haa out of the poor pájaro, and convince it that its life is in mortal danger (as if it weren't already thinking something along those lines), which caused it to flap-and-climb-like-life-is-about-to-end right back up into the ceiling!

I removed the six (SIX!) tiny screws holding the small piece of plastic onto the side of the fan encasement, and then we waited. Much like the watched pot, nothing came of that. So we decided that we would leave the kitchen, with window open and door closed, to give el pájaro some privacy in its quest for freedom. After a while we heard some noises, though not of the kinds mentioned previously, and then:

...

...

nothing.

I decided to brave the kitchen once more. I walked in, crept around to the side of the fan where the escape hatch had been opened, and what do I see? A bird head. Yup, that is it. Just the poor bird's head would fit through the opening. I said something along the lines of "Oh, you poor bird!" which caused el pájaro to notice me, and - you guessed it:

flapping-and-climbing-like-life-is-about-to-end noises galore.

It was at this point that Señor CC and I made the decision to involve el portero in our quest to free the bird. FREE BIRD! The portero is the guard at the gate to our urbanización. We have four men who routinely take care of our complex. We had never called on them to do more than open the gate or the gym up until Sunday and we weren't even sure if he could help us. Add to that the fact that Señor CC speaks no español and that I only speak a little, and well: an interesting encounter indeed!

Could he help?

Would I be able to communicate the problem?

Are we currently suffering the consequences of having a smelly dead bird in our kitchen?

Stay tuned to find out!