Dad Proves He Gives a Hoot

The Boston Herald 

The owl is a little scary-looking. I have to admit this, now that he's sitting in my office, next to my computer. This isn't his permanent home, mind you, just a resting place for this traveler.

He's headed south in a few hours, on a plane, in a trash bag, next to gloves, a face mask, ammonia and a shovel.

Off the store shelf and away from the dozens of other identical plastic great horned owls, he looks remarkably real. Which is the point, my husband reminds me. He's supposed to look real.

Maybe we should fill him with sand to anchor him, I suggest. It says here on the package, "The owl can be filled with sand or gravel for more stability."

"I'll get gravel in New York," he says. "Why would I get it now and make the owl weigh more?"

Mr. Smarty Pants. Mr. Pigeon Buster. Mr. Problem Solver. Mr. He Really Does Know What He's Talking About.

When our daughter went bonkers last weekend, having just noticed that the pigeons that were constantly perched on her balcony were leaving behind, well, shall we call them their calling cards, Mr. I Have a Solution for Every Problem never winced.

We were overnight guests, sitting on her tiny couch, watching what could have been an out-take from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds."  On the other side of a sliding glass door, 17 stories up, all we could see were pigeons - not a speck of sky.

"I hate the noise they make, Dad. We can't even open the door any more. How can we get rid of them?"

"Go get yourself a plastic owl," he said, not missing a beat.

She laughed. "A plastic owl, Dad?" I laughed. Her roommate, who was in the kitchen, laughed. Her dad just smiled.

"That's what you need," he said. "They're like scarecrows. They keep birds away."

Then Mr. Nature Channel, Mr. I'm Not Afraid of Pigeons, I'm Not Afraid of Anything, got off the couch and went out on the balcony to investigate.

"You have to see this," he yelled a minute later. "Come here, all of you."

"We don't want to look" we cried. "Just shut the door and come back in."

But he was adamant, so we peeked. There, under a table in the corner of the balcony, was something we could have lived our whole lives without seeing: a pigeon Levittown, a row of homes that these nasty creatures had built out of their own waste.  "This is what pigeons do," Mr. Jane Goodall told us. "It's how they live."

The very grown-up college girls who aren't afraid of subways or alleys or crowds or lunatics instantly turned into first-graders in the presence of pigeon poop.

"That’s gross. That's disgusting. What are we going to do? I'm not touching that stuff," they wailed.

They phoned a neighbor. "So, you have pigeons? So do I." Then they called the landlord. "This is New York, lady. There are pigeons everywhere." Then they called an exterminator. "We'll take care of your problem," the exterminator said, for $ 450.

"What are we going to do, Dad?" our daughter moaned.

And Dad gave her the answer she'd been waiting for. "Don't worry, honey. I'll take care of it. I'll clean up, get you a plastic owl, and you'll be all set."

Mr. I Can Fix Anything, Mr. Come To Me With Your Problems saved the day once again.

And so he's taking his exterminating kit along with his briefcase on this business trip. Mr. You Can Count on Me just stopping by to help out his grown-up girl.