not so irrational fear

Back in high school, we went on a family vacation to San Diego.  One of the highlights of this vacation was a visit to Sea World.  It was an awesome day with beautiful weather until my brothers and I decided we wanted a snack.  Adam went up to the churro cart and got one for each of us.  He handed me mine and then I stepped away into the sunshine to eat.  After I stepped away the nice lady at the churro stand told Adam that we need to be careful eating out in the open because the seagulls will try to grab your food and she suggested that we eat under the awning next to the stand.  Being the nice brother that he is, Adam grabbed Ben and went to stand under the protection of the awning...leaving me out in the sun just to see what was going to happen.  About 2 minutes later  a huge seagull swooped down and literally grabbed the churro out of my mouth, scaring the ever living s*#@ out of me. 

Cut to November 2011 when I started my new job in Bismarck and discovered that the grounds around our building are swarming with giant turkeys that are not shy at all about coming right up to the building.  One day there was a turkey right in front of the door, tail fanned out, staring at me through the glass and I had to have someone come and chase it away before I would step outside.  Now that spring has come and gone it appears that the turkeys have procreated.  There are two different mama turkeys that each have 6 - 7 babies that follow them around all over the place.  For someone with a completely justified fear of birds to have to look out their window every day and see 100s (OK so maybe not 100s but a LOT) of turkeys roaming around all over the place sends me into a not-so-mild panic each and every time.   

 

This is just one of the mama turkeys and 6 of her babies.  The babies are getting HUGE and really aren't even that cute.  Who knew that any kind of baby animal could look as ugly as a baby turkey? OK, so maybe I am a little biased.