It’s midnight Monday/Tuesday. I’m doped up on Nyquil fighting off the bird flu since Sunday morning. I’m sure it’s bird flu because I have issues with birds and they with me.

I have a GRRRR scary fake owl on my front porch trying to keep the flying feathered rats from crapping on my porch railing.

The owl replaced my fake snake. (The snake would freak me out sometimes when I would forget it was there. Had to make a change.)

I’ve gone as far as beating bird nests out of the trees in my yard with a broomstick. Once a young (human) mother and her children strolling by witnessed one of those beatings. It wasn’t pretty. I’ve been know to cuss once in a while when I’m frustrated. When she sees me now, she sort of acts like I’m a danger and nervously scurries by with her kids. She’ll thank me later when she realizes birds are just flying rats carrying hideous diseases. And, and, and that when they band together by the millions can permanently scar a small boy watching an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

In my defense, I only pummel the nests still under construction. If they have eggs in them or if it’s clear mama bird is ready to pop, I do everything in my power to keep them safe. I respect life. But given the chance, I will force all bird life to happen on someone else’s land.

However, once the little rat hatchlings can fly, I’m on that nest like Donald Trump on Rosie O’Donnell.

It’s probably worth mentioning again I’m looped on Nyquil as I write this. So this journal might seem random. I can’t tell. Man my toes look huge tonight. But don’t blame WCNC or my bosses if this seems disjointed and disturbing. The opinions expressed herein might not even be mine. Just one of the random voices in my head.

Where was I? Oh. Monday between swigs of Dayquil my laptop refused to interface with WCNC’s computer network. It’s a WCNC laptop so this confuses me. To make things interface, the network asked my laptop for a sacrifice. Think of it as a high tech, medieval offering. So my laptop deleted the last two days worth of my writing. In some weird parallel I-T universe this makes sense. All I know is I lost almost 2 days of work for the next show. For context, I typically spend three long days writing one 30 minute show.

Later today the fabulous and talented Andy Benton will be sitting in a very expensive Hi-Def edit suite surrounded by tens of thousands of dollars worth of TV technology and he’ll have nothing to edit. Tune in Saturday night and see if we got the show done.

If I wasn’t high on slimy green liquid, I’d be really pissed. I might even beat my laptop with a broomstick.

Perhaps no words are needed. I can mime the next show.

That might be the next great reality show! We’ll base it loosely on “American Idol” and call it “American Mime.” Wait, they’ll sue us if we call it that. How about, “Mime Over Matter,” or “CSI: Mime.” Can’t you see the 10,000 mimes wrapped around the block waiting for an audition?

Hmm, it will be a very quiet show, won’t it? Not sure about that. The judges would get tired too… “Oh, it’s the ol’ 'Man Trapped in an Imaginary Box' routine… again. Great.”

I wonder if Edward R. Murrow's files ever vanished? He pecks away at his mechanical typewriter for a few days writing about migrant farm workers. Puts the work in a manila file folder on his desktop and whammo! Gone! He’d probably scream an obscenity, light up a cigarette, reach down into his file drawer for his favorite bottle of booze and have his own private happy hour right there at work. If I did that, HR would have me beaten with a broom… kind of like, well you know.

So by Super Bowl Sunday I’m full swing into my bird flu, when my adorable wife comes home from spending the day with her dad. She’s so excited because she has picked up my Valentine’s Day gift. She cannot contain herself. She wants to give it to me this second. I oblige. She makes me close my eyes as she scampers to the front of the house. I can hear her struggling to carry this clearly heavy and wonderful gift into the kitchen. I’m kind of excited because it must be quite something. I’m thinking it’s the big honking 18 Volt Porter-Cable cordless drill I want. Or better yet, the Honda garden tiller I’ve been eyeing.

So she squeals with excitement, “OKAY! OPEN YOUR EYES!”

You know that moment when you realize the look on your face is sending a troubling message to your gift giver so you quickly try to tell your brain to send a different expression to your facial muscles and then you just end up looking baffled and gassy? That was my look.

Mike Redding / WCNC

It was a massive two-story, copper roofed bird house! A BIRD HOUSE? What the? How is this possible? The birds must have gotten to her!

Oh it’s on now my satanic little feathered friends. It is soooo on!

On a side note to you lovely women out there still shopping for a Valentine’s gift for that special man: think tools… or get yourself some sexy lingerie. These are the things a man thinks about. It’s not complicated. Don’t over-think it. Because, trust me, we’re not.

If it were humanly possible, I would try to explain what was going through my loving wife’s head… the old man who builds them, the story behind each one, the materials he uses… it’s sweet., but, God love her, in the end it’s a freakin’ bird house!

Where’s my broom?

Mike Redding