A War of Will

We are under seige.

Kamikaze Kardinal is winning.

He has found the two windows in our house that don't have screens and he throws himself against one or the other of these windows relentlessly.

I worry that he will either hurt himself or be shot by my husband. His incessant banging against the windows is making us crazy.

For a couple of days, I snuck up on him as he banged away and I jumped at the window like a madman and scared him. He's savvy, though, and began to sit innocently singing in the tree whenever he saw me skulking about. As soon as I gave up, he was back at the windows.

Plan B: A guard was posted at one of the windows:

That's Mister Big Bird to you, buddy.

Mr. Big Bird was effective. See Mr. Innocent sitting in the tree trying to look nonchalant? However, it didn't take him long to think, hey, I'll go check the front window.

Picture this: bird frantically flinging himself against window; human frantically cutting black construction paper and taping human silhouette to said window.

Bird not slowing for a second.


Bird singing mockingly on windowsill:


Human pondering further. Thinking okay, Big Bird was effective. Why? Because he's a bird? Because, unlike the paper silhouette, he's three dimensional? Because he's bright yellow and has big eyes?

Hhhhmmmmm.....what else might we have here?

Guard number two:

Garfield on duty.

Very effective. So far.

The war goes on. Kazi is an unknowing participant in my behavior experiments.

Or perhaps I'm an unknowing participant in his behavior experiments.