psa: pigeons won't fly away

on friday, i ran over a pigeon on the way to work. ran over.  i was driving along, obeying most traffic laws and i saw two pigeons just walking around in my lane.  i didn't swerve to avoid them, because in my 18 years of driving (wait, 18? that can't be right...IT IS.  oh brother.) i've never NOT seen a bird fly away quickly when there is a 2-ton vehicle barreling toward them.  as i got closer, one of the pigeons flew away, like he's SUPPOSED TO, but the other pigeon just kept walking around, enjoying the view.  i figured he was involved in some sort of dare or game of chicken and at last minute he'd fly away.  i kept thinking this right up until thu-thump.

NO.

sure enough, i looked in the rearview mirror to see feathers flying all over the place. enough to fill a pillow.  i felt terrible.

then my co-workers, kade and andrea, and i walked outside to look at it and its skull was crushed and some guts were out.  and i felt even more terrible than i did before.  i've never taken a life before, unless you count all the bugs smeared on my windshield.  kade kept trying to tell me that pigeons are rat-birds and that i was doing the world a great favor by eliminating one.  that didn't help.  it did, however, help when andrea said it probably didn't fly away because it had a broken wing and i probably just put it out of its misery.  this made me feel a lot better.  and then, for lunch, we ordered jimmy john's sandwiches and played friends scene it? (which i dominated because i'm a loser)  so i forgot all about the pigeon.  until kade texted me later that night with these words: bird killer.

the point is this: don't assume too much from pigeons.  they won't fly away and you will hit them with your death machine.