[QUOTE=plnnr]
The message of deep importance in this is…
Put screens in your windows. It keeps the birds out and you live forever.
[/QUOTE]
When I got the bird in my house, it came in through the door, not the window, so screens are no guarantee of living forever. I had opened the door to let the dogs out, and she must have been underneath the stairs, so they flushed her out and she went in the door behind me while I was facing the other way.
Interesting… this is my 662nd post. Coincidence?
[QUOTE=Another Primate]
(psst – since post count will change next time Surly posts, I’ll mention here that it is 666 right now)
(psssssssssssst – I hope Surly posts soon, because it’s gonna creep me out, if it stays 666 forever)
[/QUOTE]
Especially if she doesn’t post again because she’s dead.
[QUOTE=Khadaji]
My Gram also held a belief like this. If a bird flies into your window, someone in the family will die.
The family folklore holds that the day before my brother died (before my birth) a bird flew into Gram’s window and she just *knew *someone would die.
[/QUOTE]
And sure enough, someone did, somewhere…
[QUOTE=Thinks2Much]
My (paternal) grandmother believed the same thing, and a female cardinal flew into my house one day. My pet rabbit died the next day. So maybe your statute of limitations is only 24 hours? 
That same grandmother also said that if you inadvertently placed a loaf of bread upside down, it meant someone you loved would die. She freaked out once when she came over for dinner and my mother had put the bread upside down (which was how I found out she held that superstition). Within the week, my mother’s father had a heart attack and died in his early 60s. My grandmother blamed the upside down bread.
She was full of silly superstitions… it was bad luck to flip the calendar in advance or to celebrate a birthday before the actual date - both on the premise that you are tempting fate to make sure that those days do not come then, or if you forgot what you wanted to say then it must have been a lie, drop a fork and an unexpected guest is coming over. She had so many…
[/QUOTE]
It’s bad luck to be superstitious.
[QUOTE=Surly Chick]
So apparently I’m scheduled to depart this mortal coil shortly.
[/QUOTE]
Perhaps you could confuse fate by scheduling a trip to Buffalo soon?
Shuffle off this mortal coil,
Shuffle off to Buffalo;
Pretty similar, no?
I vividly remember the month that my family died one by one. It was a hummingbird that kept getting into the house and the funeral bills were getting insane. I finally had enough sense to keep a tennis racket and sugar water with me at all times. Splat. Problem solved.
What I wanna know is, what if the cat brings a bird into the house, the bird escapes the cat and flies around the room, with cat in hot pursuit, and then bird flies OUT of the house? What does that mean? Other than the cat should be kept indoors?
R.I.P Fluffy, Mighty Huntress.
[QUOTE=Lynn Bodoni]
What I wanna know is, what if the cat brings a bird into the house, the bird escapes the cat and flies around the room, with cat in hot pursuit, and then bird flies OUT of the house? What does that mean? Other than the cat should be kept indoors?
R.I.P Fluffy, Mighty Huntress.
[/QUOTE]
Cats are not affected by flying birds inside the house. That is one reason they are so successful as a species aside from being psychopathic nut-jobs. A bird has to land on a human to cause death although there are some documented cases of birds flying near a person yet not actually landing on them and the person still dies suddenly and tragically . The people in question have died days or weeks later and the autopsy revealed nothing except for traces of a single feather. Experts recommend that a tennis racket or even a 12 gauge is suitable defense against all birds. There is truth the old saying that a bird in the hand is worth a ton of funeral bills.
Surly Chick, we hardly knew ye…
Just wait for the day that Avian Flu decides to go postal on humans. That ‘old wives tale’ will look a little more accurate.
Someone now just needs to write a Ring Around the Rosie-esque poem for birds in the window.
Actually, there’s a way to ward off the spell, and that’s to get Colibri to identify the species of bird from the description in the OP. If he gets it right, that means you’ll live to the age of 115 and have 400 great-great-grandchildren.
At least, that’s how the superstition goes in my family.
[QUOTE=adam yax]
…Someone now just needs to write a Ring Around the Rosie-esque poem for birds in the window.
[/QUOTE]
In the office briskly working, filers file and clerks are clerking
Only Ted in Sales is shirking, playing desk-top Solitaire,
At her desk a Surly Chick shifts her mouse and with a click
Banishes unwanted e-mail from the comfort of her chair
Impatient at the wasted time she offers up a laic prayer:
“I really have no time to spare.”
Meanwhile in the blue spring sky a brown-and-yellow bird soars high
Thinking it a joy to fly in the coolness of the air
While down below a Surly Chick toils in a nest of brick
Take them both and don’t they just make such a funny pair?
Surly Chick and soaring bird, the latter without care –
Nothing but song, and time to spare.
None knows when the fates decreed to fill an unacknowledged need
Redirecting a bird downward, downward through the springtime air
Straighter than an archer’s arrow to a window ledge so narrow
There was barely purchase for a fly, much less a songbird there
As the sash was slightly open, in he went with this to share:
Just his song, and time to spare.
No clerk felt inclined to tackle the wren or finch or maybe grackle
Trespassing into the office, stately place of business where
Matters of the greatest weight sober folk deliberate
Serious and staid and grave these people manage their affairs
Surly Chick presides and thus frivolity they all forswear
They have no songs, nor time to spare.
The sparrow, chickadee or thrush took advantage of the hush
To loose a note, bright, clear and lush and all the clerks turned 'round to stare
The room had something brand-new in it: the filing stopped a quarter-minute
Even Ted, the slug, looked up from his game of Solitaire
The Songbird finished, paused, and alighted then upon the chair
Once again his song to share
Next the bird politely greeted Surly Chick who, as he tweeted,
Cracked a window and entreated him to leave her office chair
“Now,” thought she, "the office buzz’ll be something I’ll have to muzzle.
“It’s a puzzle – I must cure them of exposure to fresh air.”
So she told 'em “It’s an omen – someone here will die!” to scare,
For she had no time to spare.
She relaxed as her co-workers, all the filers and the clerkers
even Ted relapsed back into a productive, dull despair.
But though she’d lied about the song, Chick was only partly wrong
The songbird had a message of which we should be aware
We all shall die, so how we live requires of us greater care
I heard the little bird declare,
Find your song, and time to share.
[QUOTE=The King of Soup]
In the office briskly working…
[/QUOTE]
Out-fucking-standing!
wild applause
There’s been a hoot-owl by my window now,
For six nights in a row.
I’ve heartily and sincerely lauded
And righteously praised
To what the others have applauded,
By King of Soup amazed.
Let’s give him another crown
Of poet’s laurel leaves instead–
Hey, what’s all that white stuff
Splotched on the royal’s head?
[QUOTE=Surly Chick]
So apparently I’m scheduled to depart this mortal coil shortly. It’s been nice knowing you, Dopers.
[/QUOTE]
Only if you put a hat on a bed recently and child has combed your hair.
Dintcha know that?
Holy shit King of Soup. That was friggen awesome.
Sorry I haven’t posted but I’ve been busy honing the blade of my sword (the metal of which has been folded 200 times) in the event that that Zebra is correct and I become immortal. I must say I’m not looking forward to having to speak in a really bad faux Scottish accent. Although I am busily drawing up a list of beheadings that need doing…
[QUOTE=5-4-Fighting]
Only if you put a hat on a bed recently and child has combed your hair.
Dintcha know that?
[/QUOTE]
:eek: Gaaaaaa! More bad news! I have all my baseball caps hanging off my bed post and my nephew used to love brushing my hair - not recently though so maybe that has expired. Again, I’d like to know the statute of limitations on these sort of things.
Kythereia has kindly informed us that death is only imminent if the bird was a robin. While I’m sure it wasn’t, I am - given name: Robin. I’m doomed.
And I would like to thank The King of Soup for his fantastic poem. No one has ever written a poem about me before. Perhaps he can recite it at my funeral…
**The King of Soup **–You are my new hero. That was wonderful.
Find your song and time to share.