For as long as he can remember, Matt has had a serious phobia of birds. He isn't sure how this all happened, only that it has always been this way. He can, however, remember certain instances of bird-terror in his life.
The earliest bird encounter Matt can remember, is at the tender age of 6. His family had gone to Disneyland for a vacation, and at one point they were eating at an outdoor cafe. Pigeons littered the ground like garbage, and Matt can remember sitting in his mom's lap out of fright, and making her scare them away.
Next was the time as an 8-year-old when he ran out of the living room screaming hysterically, when a robin bird had flown in through the open window and circled over his head as he played with his toys.
And then at the age of 12, Matt watched the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Birds. That was a mistake. He literally cried over that one.
Once, when he was 15, he was asked to babysit the neighbor girls. When he arrived at their home, it was to find 2 chickens plucking away on the front porch. Terrified for his life, he had yelled until the girls came outside. He then made them shoo the chickens away before going inside their house.
When he was 23 he was shopping at a Walmart when a bird randomly flew into the building. It swooped low over the produce section as he was selecting strawberries. He never shops at Walmart anymore.
And to this day he is constantly harassed by the insidious albino pigeon who dwells at the Sear's parking lot, and likes to poop on his car.
This morning, Matt made a list of various birds, rating them on a scale from 1-10, as to how terrifying they are. 1 being not at all scary, and 10 meaning that they cause a fear leading to full-fledged panic for him.
At the bottom of the scale were ducks, at a fairly safe 3. He can handle ducks as long as they stay a foot or so away. In fact, they can be kinda cute. Next was the pretty yellow bird at a 4 that sat in his tree the other day that he admired from a distance.
On the opposite end of the scale at a 9 were crows and magpies. They cause him to twitch in nervousness.
At a 10 were the velociraptors from Jurassic park (he has a reoccuring nightmare involving these), chickens, turkeys, the freakish pink bird he once saw at the zoo and pigeons. These all make him want to flee.
And topping it off at a whopping 10.5... hummingbirds. Yup, those fierce little suckers with swords for a beak that zip around way too fast cause Matt to cower indoors when they come around. They could stab his eyes out!
Matt wishes he could enjoy birds like any normal, sensible person, but he just can't. That's all there is to it... ;-)
