My brother cracks me up!
(Edited to post text here rather than a dead link)
An email came in today from my brother (M2) titled "A very, very, especially sad story about a bird fetus":
Last night I sent daughter #2 upstairs to get ready for bed while wife, daughter #1 and I finished some things downstairs. A few moments later we all heard a blood-curdling scream, followed by convulsing tears and wailing.
Time began to compress as I got up from the kitchen table and moved toward the stairs. As the second round of sobbing crescendoed, I got out a weak, "Are you OK, [daughter]?" before I started sprinting up the stairs. In those time-condensed moments I was trying to figure out if there was any way she could have gravely injured herself while brushing her teeth. Like in the moments before a car accident, I was frozen in time with my thoughts, A razor in the girls' bathroom? Couldn't be. Stepped on a punji that went all the way through her foot and came out the top? Unlikely. Maybe one of her stuffed animals was injured? She had an element of sorrow in her cry of pain… and how many stairs are in this house anyway?
As I reached the top stair she had completed the bawling trifecta with tears, snot, and drool all cascading down her cheeks, onto her chin, down her bathrobe and onto to the carpet. I was concerned for her hydration status, she had lost a pint of fluid in seconds. She was able to rasp out a moan, "I killed a baby bird, aaauuuugggghhh!" She had some slippery substance on her hands that seemed to be more than just nasal discharge mixed with saliva. As time progression was still retarded, I had time to think, "We don't have a baby bird, how could one get in here? And how could it look like slime after she killed it? Shouldn't there be some feathers or something?" As the clock began to return to normal speed I realized it was the yolk of an egg.
At the top of the stairs, looped over the handrail was the giant Spring wreath Wife had taken off the front door. It was waiting to go back in the attic after having been replaced by a May basket for the big May Day party. The wreath had in it a small bird's nest, carefully constructed and delicately fused into the top of the wreath. Daughter thought that Wife had put the nest there; it was so perfect that it looked fake. There was a small speckled blue and brown egg in the nest.
When Daughter removed the egg to examine it, it broke in her hands. She killed a baby bird! Or so she thought. Fortunately the embryo had not started to form, so there was no structure to the egg's internals, just some yellow goo. Daughter must have placed her hands to her face as she realized in horror what she had done, because there was some of the egg stuff on her chin.
Wife explained to her that this egg had not begun to develop and that she had not indeed killed a baby bird. Daughter eventually started to believe Wife and she has recovered from the traumatic event. We are thankful that it was only goo, it could have been much worse if there were a partial baby bird in there.
When she was fully recovered, I asked her if she would like to make it into an omelet, but she declined.
An email came in today from my brother (M2) titled "A very, very, especially sad story about a bird fetus":
Last night I sent daughter #2 upstairs to get ready for bed while wife, daughter #1 and I finished some things downstairs. A few moments later we all heard a blood-curdling scream, followed by convulsing tears and wailing.
Time began to compress as I got up from the kitchen table and moved toward the stairs. As the second round of sobbing crescendoed, I got out a weak, "Are you OK, [daughter]?" before I started sprinting up the stairs. In those time-condensed moments I was trying to figure out if there was any way she could have gravely injured herself while brushing her teeth. Like in the moments before a car accident, I was frozen in time with my thoughts, A razor in the girls' bathroom? Couldn't be. Stepped on a punji that went all the way through her foot and came out the top? Unlikely. Maybe one of her stuffed animals was injured? She had an element of sorrow in her cry of pain… and how many stairs are in this house anyway?
As I reached the top stair she had completed the bawling trifecta with tears, snot, and drool all cascading down her cheeks, onto her chin, down her bathrobe and onto to the carpet. I was concerned for her hydration status, she had lost a pint of fluid in seconds. She was able to rasp out a moan, "I killed a baby bird, aaauuuugggghhh!" She had some slippery substance on her hands that seemed to be more than just nasal discharge mixed with saliva. As time progression was still retarded, I had time to think, "We don't have a baby bird, how could one get in here? And how could it look like slime after she killed it? Shouldn't there be some feathers or something?" As the clock began to return to normal speed I realized it was the yolk of an egg.
At the top of the stairs, looped over the handrail was the giant Spring wreath Wife had taken off the front door. It was waiting to go back in the attic after having been replaced by a May basket for the big May Day party. The wreath had in it a small bird's nest, carefully constructed and delicately fused into the top of the wreath. Daughter thought that Wife had put the nest there; it was so perfect that it looked fake. There was a small speckled blue and brown egg in the nest.
When Daughter removed the egg to examine it, it broke in her hands. She killed a baby bird! Or so she thought. Fortunately the embryo had not started to form, so there was no structure to the egg's internals, just some yellow goo. Daughter must have placed her hands to her face as she realized in horror what she had done, because there was some of the egg stuff on her chin.
Wife explained to her that this egg had not begun to develop and that she had not indeed killed a baby bird. Daughter eventually started to believe Wife and she has recovered from the traumatic event. We are thankful that it was only goo, it could have been much worse if there were a partial baby bird in there.
When she was fully recovered, I asked her if she would like to make it into an omelet, but she declined.