an elephant's faithful

i have this tattoo on my arm, it reads "one hundred per cent" and it's inspired by a Dr. Seuss book about an elephant who sits on an egg, patiently and impatiently, for many weeks until the thing hatches and, because the elephant cared and dedicated itself and loved that little egg, the tiny tiny that emerges is part bird and part elephant, even though genetics would have dictated otherwise. i have this tattoo because i am not the biological parent of my twin boys, and yet i sat, day in and day out, waiting for them to be born, loving those little eggs, and when they did show up, perhaps they showed signs of the parental me, for no other reason than I cared. in my family, we call this the Horton effect.

so it is no surprise that a little pigeon family picked our empty A/C slip to start a brood, one little egg in one little nest, and that i discovered it just in time to become completely and totally obsessed. here's what's happened so far:

my wife discovers a decent amount of bird shit inside our apartment. we are appropriately disgusted.

i sweep said bird shit away so that the boys don't eat it and get mad rat disease or something worse.

i kick the A/C slip cover half a dozen times in an attempt to shut it.

this attempt fails.

i open A/C slip.

i see a bird, a big fat momma bird, sitting on a nest.

the Horton effect kicks in.