You'll Shoot Your Eye Out.

I came home this afternoon and felt like it was the perfect type of afternoon to take a nap. Kind of cool, a little overcast, plus I was incredibly sleepy. Perfect!

Apparently I need to check with the local wildlife before planning my afternoon naps.

I had just drifted off to sleep when I heard a tapping. An incessant tapping. It was like that Donald Duck episode where Daffy can't sleep because of the lights and the dripping, among other things. There's a part at the end of the episode where Donald goes a little bonkers, and really, that could've been me this afternoon.

I lay in bed for quite a while, half asleep, trying to figure out what the noise could be. Dad hammering in some siding? No, he was at the store. The neighbor boys being obnoxious? No, why would they be tapping on the side of my room? A ghost? If it were night, maybe, but not in the middle of the afternoon.

I decided to ignore the tapping, hoping I would drift back off to sleep. When the tapping continued, I tried ear plugs, but to no avail. This is where the hair pulling out, wrapping myself in my mattress, extreme measures to try to ignore the tapping came into play. At this point I knew what the sound must be, but was trying to ignore it, knowing that acknowledging it would mean taking some serious action.

I finally came to the conclusion I'd been fooling myself. There was no ignoring this sound, and the sound, a repeating triple-tap, had to be coming from a woodpecker. I couldn't think how a woodpecker had attached itself to the side of our house and why it was tormenting me, but knew I had to to do something about it. I got dressed, crept downstairs, and quietly opened the front door.

There it was, the demon bird:

It was perched on the side of our house, just outside of my bedroom, pecking away. Ooooooh, I was angry! I'm not a violent person, I am a nature and animal fan, and I've never liked guns. However...I have never wanted a BB gun so badly in my life than I did at that moment. Visions of triumph of woman over beast filled my head as I stared down with the foul bird. (As an artist, I also couldn't help in that moment to admire the bird's beautiful colors and plumage...it was a confusing time for me.)

Being severely lacking in guns, I reached for the closest thing I could find...a cane. I figured I could knock the beasty down and show him who was boss. And if that crafty bird hadn't flown off just as I emerged with my deadly weapon, he would've been in for a world of hurt.

Having thwarted my attempts at defensive tactics, I decided to take up the offense. This came in the form of bee and wasp spray. I grabbed a ladder, opened the garage door (I felt like a real warrior, the garage door slowly opening as I stood there, ladder slung over my shoulder and bug spray in hand) and set it up near the corner where the damage had been done. I couldn't be-lieve the size of the hole!!

It doesn't look that big in this picture, but it was about 4 inches long and 1 inch wide. What was that beast doing?!

I bug-bombed the area with the wasp spray as Woody watched from a nearby tree. Take that, foul fiend! I haven't heard any pecking since, but believe me, if I do...I may have to ask Santa for a certain Red Ryder BB gun.