Addendum: I will never get used to...INSANE ATTACK BIRDS TRYING TO PECK YOUR EYES OUT!

As I was reading through other people's blog entries, I had an epiphany of something massive that I will never, ever, ever get used to!

These evil insane attack birds (otherwise known as magpies) have scarred me for life.  It was a day like any other - I was riding my bicycle to work, along the same route I always took.  Today, though, something was different.  As I rode along Ipswich Rd, huge trucks rumbling by, I heard an alarming noise and thought I felt something hit my helmet.  Then it happened again...and then again.  I was confused and unaware of what was happening, until I realized a psychotic bird was slamming itself into my helmet for reasons unbeknownst to me.  Not knowing what else to do, I continued pedalling, while also screaming my head off.  All of a sudden, the onslaught ceased.  I arrived at work, traumatized from this freak encounter.  I explained what had happened to my co-worker, and she smiled knowingly and said "Was it a black and white bird?"  YES!  IT WAS!  How could she possibly know that?  "Oh yes...they'll do that".  WHAT.  How can you be so blase about an evil attack bird?  I looked it up online, and lo and behold, magpies are known to go insane for about three months of the year.  I spent the next couple of months in terror.  I changed my bike route entirely (and still experienced another attack).  If I saw a magpie on one side of the road, I would cross to the other side cringing in fear.  One day one of my coworkers came back to the office from a school visit and told me that the oval had been shut down because of a rogue magpie!  Apparently school children in Australia wore ice cream buckets on their heads or carried long sticks with ice cream buckets at the top so the magpies would attack the bucket rather than the person (they go for the highest object).  Now I finally knew what those weird things poking out of bicyclist's helmets were!

 

  Others had the misfortune of being attacked as well.  When I had a couple of Canadian housemates for a few months, I arrived home to find Kayleigh in an EXTREMELY bad mood.  On her walk to the train that morning, she had been ambushed by an EVIL ATTACK BIRD.  It flew at her, swooping her several times.  In her panicked state, she dropped her handbag and stuff fell all over the place.  No one assisted her - in fact, people were laughing!  She spent that evening shut away in her bedroom and was not amused when her boyfriend laughed at the story. 

So, I say again - I will never get used to those psychotic birds.  Give me a robin any day!