City v. Suburbs Pt. 3: The Tale of the Bird House

After a year of looking, we bought a house.

Our biggest worry is the bird.

–

It was an early summer evening when we walked through the house for the first time. There’s an addition that butts up against the living room, which doesn’t have any of its own windows. By the late afternoon, the living room is a little dark.

There’s one other thing about the living room. The current owners keep a bird there, in a big cage in a corner. It may be a parrot, but I’m not sure.

So we walk into the house and spend a moment in the foyer. As we walk into the living room, the parrot or whatever lets out this loud series of squawks.

It startled everybody. No one expects to hear an animal when you’re on a house tour. Least of all, Jack.

“I don’t like that bird. I don’t like that bird.” He did that little fear dance that kids will do, the one that makes you think they have to go to the bathroom really bad, and pointed at the cage. As I scooped him up to give him a hug, I couldn’t help but think of Rain Man, squiggling around talking about how Judge Wapner would be on in four minutes.

We finished the tour quickly and decide to keep looking.

–

Cut to five months later.

We’ve looked at about every house that has gone up for sale. We made an offer on a house we ultimately didn’t get. We’re starting to think we will just rent, forever, while we keep looking at an endless series of home interiors online.

The bird house is back on the market, so we decided to take another look without the boys a couple of weeks ago. This time, it looks different. It is exactly what we want, a fine house that we can put a little bit of work into and turn into our home. In some kind of real estate miracle, we make an offer over breakfast and the deal is done before dinner.

A few days later, Lara starts to tell Jack about the house. We had decided to ease into this conversation with him. I bought Jack a walking, talking version of Rex the dinosaur from Toy Story when he was about a year and a half. Jack did not like that toy. At all. More than a year later, he STILL says he doesn’t like Rex.

She doesn’t tell him we bought the house. Just that we looked at one that we like, quite a bit. He wants to see pictures, so Lara pulls up the MLS listing on her laptop.

The first picture is of the exterior of the house.

Jack looks at Lara and says, “That’s the creepy bird house. I don’t like that house.”

Are you effing kidding me?

–

How Jack sees our new home.

When I was a kid, I was insanely scared of the title sequence and theme music from a show called “Creature Feature” that aired on Friday nights. Every time I heard that music, I would run into my room and pull a pillow over my head, convinced the grinning skeleton with the sunken eyes and the top hat was about to walk through my door. My wife was absolutely horrified of E.T. She thought he was creepy looking and is still, to this day, no great fan. As we educate the boys in pop culture, I think watching E.T. with the boys is going to be up to me.

We’re conscious, of how fear sticks with kids. So we want to take this bird thing seriously.

But at the same time, the bird thing sucks. Because now we won’t let him run around the house for a few months, until after the closing and we’re about to move in. Because even when the house is empty and all signs of the previous owners are completely gone, it might not quite be enough. He may still associate the place with that bird.

Adult fears are air, invisible things that fill your lungs and quicken your heart. Fear of failure. Of losing your job. Of the weird lump that could be cancer. Of visions of your kids in some horrible accident.

I’ll take kid fears. They’re primal and real, of things right in front of you. At least they are  tangible and touchable versus those horrible whispers that crowd your head.

In the meantime, if you know any good bird exorcists, leave their information in the comments.