So I get out of car at the coliseum. No, not The Coliseum. The JSU Coliseum, where they play basketball games and have locker rooms and such. And where, in the summer, they have a couple of wellness classes and programs for kids.
This is back when a wellness course was still part of the core curriculum (which, of course, means this is like one semester before they drop wellness from the core curriculum). I'm taking the course over summer, cause if I have to sit through a wellness course, I'd rather do it during a summer term where it'll be over in a month.
As I get to the front steps, a car pulls up in front of me and this lady that I want to describe as one of the mother-women from Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening is dropping her little girl off. The daughter is really cute, with her little child-size backpack and about a dozen little braids popping up here and there from her head. I guess she was about six.
We take the steps at the same time, and in the glass doors ahead, the little girl sees me behind her. She turns, and asks me all earnestness, "Do you like birds?"
I'm a little thrown, because I certainly wasn't expecting this. But the answer is pretty easy, right? I mean, what kind of person* doesn't like birds?
"Yeah," I reply and smile. I hold the door open for her. She doesn't say anything and so I think to myself it must be my turn to say something. My mind draws up an image of Tiffany's bird. He's green and his name is Pete.
"My friend has a bird," I offer.
The little girl just looks at me.
It wasn't a mean look. It was more like I was in a play and had just missed my cue or something.** She kind of shrugged it off and went on to her next line. If this were a play, this would be a line of great import.
"Because blue jays, they're really pretty, but they're really mean."
Then she was gone, off to whatever summertime kiddie program she was participating in. And I was left standing there wondering if I had gotten the message.
* Jaimie (my roommate, bandmate, soul twin, etc.) doesn't like birds. She is disturbed by their hollow bones and claw-like feet.
** It was more like the part in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere where Door explains something to Richard Mayhew. It says she gives him the kind of look mothers give their children when they explain, yes, fire burns and yes, all fires burn.