“Doesn’t matter how thirsty I am. If I see a lizard in the kitchen, I’m not going in. I’d rather die of thirst than face that monster,” a friend of mine quipped while munching on a slice of pizza.
“Spiders dude. Spiders are the real nightmares. Why the hell are they so hairy?” said another.
“Cockroaches!”
“Flying cockroaches!”
“Oh yes! Shit gets real when they start flying!”
“Yes.”
They all turned to me now expecting me to come clean of my phobia.
“What terrifies you the most?”
“P-p-pigeons…” I said meekly.
‘What?”
“Pigeons,” I repeated myself. I was now regretting coming to this get together.
I couldn’t hear what they said afterwards ’cause it got drowned in a sea of laughter. I chugged on my beer grudgingly, knowing fully well that I couldn’t convince them.
It’s 100% true.
I mean I am super scared of lizards and cockroaches as well (I mean death over flying cockroaches).
But as a millennial living in a metro city, it’s the pigeons that scare the shit out of me.
Yes, those seemingly harmless plump creatures that are now an indispensable part of the concrete jungles we call home.
Lizards you can shoo away.
You can spray away the cockroaches.
But how do you get rid of a pest that just doesn’t go away? I mean no matter how many times I try shooing them away, all they do is glide away to a distance.
I check on them after 5 minutes, and there they are. Sitting on the same spot, eyeing me sideways with those orange eyes of theirs.
It’s like nature has cursed them with constant diarrhea. Do they eat laxatives for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Seriously, they’re like a shit machine with wings.
As a working professional living alone, it’s difficult enough to maintain a basic level of hygiene.
Add to that these pigeons who think it’s perfectly fine to shit all over that veranda you’d just mopped with great effort.
I can’t put out clothes to dry. Simply because they come out of nowhere and drop a huge load of their awesomeness on any clean stretch they find.
And why are they always horny? It’s like eat, mate, sleep, repeat. The only exercise these male pigeons seem to be getting is by chasing the female pigeons around.
And then, they build their nests in the most awkward places ever. On top of almirahs, inside exhaust fans, above doors. And if you use anti-bird spikes, they’ll build a nest on that too. Of course we can’t even touch it because paap lagega.
Don’t they do basic recce before choosing where to settle?
The next time you see a lizard or a cockroach in your vicinity, just be thankful that it’s not a pigeon.