I’m no longer a fan of cat stationery, horse figurines or T-shirts with zoo scenes airbrushed onto them, if I ever was. Animal memorabilia may be juvenile and trashy, but real animals are more appealing. At least I feel more affection for them than some of my friends who wish they were all eradicated. In fact, I actually like my own cats and could never understand others’ hesistance to adore them. Despite their annoyed reactions, I’ve never tired of waking them up at my house by dangling my cat, Gracie, in their faces.
While my attitude towards animals in general is amicable at best and ambivalent at worse, at even the mention of wings, their eyes start burning, their nostrils flare and their shoulders hunch protectively. Their reactions have never ceased to amuse me. On a trip to D.C. in high school, an arrogant, football-playing, Ivy league-bound friend yelped and leaped back in horror as a pigeon took off 10 feet in front of him. And in an instance of incredible irony, one spring break we unknowingly chose a hotel on the beach right next to a bird reserve. It was endless entertainment for me to watch my friends diving into the sand as swarms of pelicans and seagulls flew over or roosted right down the shore. And at Georgetown I delight in taking visitors under a particularly bird-infested tree on the way to Yates. I’ve taken every opportunity to exploit my friends’ disgust.
This has all changed, however, and my friends have the last laugh. I have recently developed a seething malevolence towards birds, pigeons in particular. There may be a lot of pigeons in D.C., but the European pigeon is another breed. These birds know no bounds.
It all started my first week abroad when my friend calmly announced as we were sitting at a cafe that a pigeon had just walked over her bare foot. Given her antipathy to birds, I was amazed at her composure, yet nauseated by such close contact with a pigeon’s wrinkled pinkish feet. Little did I know, this was only the beginning. Pigeons would begin to haunt me indoors or out, at swanky cafes or city parks, train stations or the pedestrian shopping streets.
On a day trip I was lucky enough to sit in a plaza next to a chic French woman who, to my disbelief, started throwing pieces of her sandwich to a flock of mongrels. I wanted to throw up. This was the vilest group of pigeons I’d ever seen, some with graying feathers and yellow eyes, others missing a leg or toes on their claw feet, and they were persistent as hell. I tried desperately to stop the woman with a stare, when that didn’t work I tried to kill her with my eyes. I flailed out at the flock, but they were undeterred and didn’t leave even after she did. On the same trip, another student wouldn’t stop talking about how amazing it is that pigeons have eyelids and can blink. I gave her an open-mouthed look of revulsion and when she didn’t stop talking about them, I sadly realized that no one shared my hostility. Actually, they all were laughing at me and my repulsion, saying “They’re just animals.” Are these people crazy?
Europeans as a group seem more laid back about animals than Americans. It’s not uncommon for animals to be in restaurants-we’re talking labradors wandering around begging you for a bite of your salad at a trendy bar, or scruffy terriers peeking out from people’s laps at tea salons. I mean, the housecat is allowed up on the counter with all the food and in the sink with the dishes. (When I first saw her jump up ,I panicked and gesticulated wildly to my host family, who didn’t understand what I was saying and then explained that “Moustache” is supposed to climb up there for her water bowl.
Maybe Europeans have it right-we really shouldn’t worry about separating ourselves from dogs and cats, because as they say, their mouths are cleaner than ours. Whatever. But the French government should quit obsessing about immigration in the human population, social security or unemployment and focus on the pigeon problem: reproduction/migration must end. Why aren’t the French out on the street striking about pigeon pollution rather than the salary of Metro workers? How can people refuse to give a coin to a beggar but throw an end of a baguette to a bird?
Any tolerance I had for the winged creatures has evaporated. Now I dream of a scene in the film 24 Hour Party People where they poison hordes of pigeons up on a Manchester roof and laugh evilly as they drop dead one by one. Maybe my transformation was inevitable, being surrounded by so many bird-haters. But I haven’t crossed the line into an all-out animal-hater, yet. If I ate tuna, I’d still buy it dolphin-free.
Kathryn King is a junior in the School of Foreign Service and associate editor of The Georgetown Voice. Her preferred greeting is “Well hey there, tiger!”
