Birdbaths. What are they?
That is the question I found myself pondering this morning while standing at the window of my converted barn, watching a squirrel drink from the stone basin I purchased — reluctantly, I might add, at considerable personal expense — from the garden center in Pickax. My moustache tingled. It always tingles when something is fundamentally wrong, and something was fundamentally wrong. That squirrel was stealing my water.
But I digress. Birdbaths are, as most educated readers of this column already know, shallow basins filled with water. They are placed outdoors. Birds use them. Do they appreciate them? One has to wonder.
Koko, who had been sitting on the windowsill with the alert stillness of a sphinx contemplating the riddle of existence itself, flicked his tail precisely twice. Yum Yum sneezed. I have learned, after years of careful observation, that when Koko flicks his tail twice and Yum Yum sneezes, something significant is being communicated. In this case, I believe they were telling me that birdbaths are a waste of the Klingenschoen Fund’s resources, which I happen to agree with, despite having written off seven of them as community enrichment installations for tax purposes. A perfectly reasonable arrangement, my accountant assures me.
Who even invented birdbaths? Why are they always made of concrete? These are questions no one in Pickax seems to ask, which is surprising given that the town’s three thousand residents have, statistically speaking, more pressing concerns — such as the four arsons and two unsolved murders that occurred this past quarter alone. But that is neither here nor there, and I certainly had nothing to do with any of them, regardless of what certain people mutter at the post office.
Koko knocked a book off the shelf. It was *The Birds* by Aristophanes. Coincidence? I think not.
Meanwhile, I have noticed a suspicious man lingering near my property. He claimed to be a birdwatcher, but my moustache disagreed violently. Anyone loitering near my barn could easily be casing my Siamese. I have said this before and I will say it again: people covet my cats.
I had planned to write more on this subject, but Yum Yum is sitting on my notepad and Koko has begun yowling at a pitch that suggests dinner is overdue. The citizens of Moose County will simply have to content themselves with what I have provided, which is, frankly, more than they deserve on the topic of outdoor water receptacles for ungrateful wildlife.
Birdbaths.
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