The Sparrow and the Spontaneous Workout

So I was sitting on the couch trying to decide what to write about today.  And then I heard a weird noise.  It kind of sounded like a pile of papers falling to the ground, but I didn't see anything like that.  I got up and looked in the powder room.  I thought maybe there was something in the exhaust vent, but nope.
Then I went into our laundry room, and found nothing there either.  But I did hear the noise again.
Hmmm.  The only other place I could think of to look was our small utility closet (which only has the furnace and the water heater in it).  I slid open the door....and out flies a frickin' sparrow. 

WHAT?!?!

How in the hell did a sparrow end up in my utility closet?  And now it's loose in my house!!!!  I was on the phone with my friend and she said to call Animal Control.  I said, "Are you kidding?  I can get rid of this by myself.  Besides, if I can't find it, I have 2 dogs and 2 cats in the house who would probably love to chase it and catch it for me."  Yeah, right!  I'll just tell you now that during the rest of this crazy story, my pets were useless and annoying!

Anyway, now I have to find the stupid thing.  I looked on top of all the tall furniture downstairs, but I didn't see it anywhere.  So I went upstairs.  Thank goodness the doors to my kids' bedrooms were closed.  Less places for me to look, and less places for it to possibly POOP! 

As I entered my bedroom, there it was!  Just hanging out on the curtain rod as if it just belonged there.  This whole thing was so absurd that I broke down laughing and decided I had to go back downstairs to get my cell phone so I could take a picture.  I mean, who was going to believe that I had a random sparrow in my house???
I came back upstairs and as soon as I had the bird lined up for a picture, it decided to fly at me and out of the room.  I gave up on the picture and rushed to close my bedroom doors.  (Of course one of my dogs kept getting in the way...UGH!  I gave up and locked her in the bedroom.)  So now the bird is flying back and forth in the upstairs hallway trying to find a place to land or a way out.  It ended up moving around a lot.  In the meantime I was trying to figure out the best way to either catch it (in a pillow case?  a large towel or bed sheet?), or to shoo it out the front door (which was not yet open.)
Of course just then it flew down straight to the front door, and then came back up and settled on the frame of the bathroom door.  Then on the vent, and back to the door frame.  I finally got my pictures!




Can you believe this crazy bird? 
I actually felt kind of bad for it. 
It was obviously stressed out.



 

 

Anyway, to make a very long story short...after locking up both dogs and one cat in different bedrooms, chasing after the bird with a bed sheet, I decided that shooing out the front door was the best option.  I chased it downstairs, where it happily perched on a wall hanging, I opened the front door and tried to hold open the storm door so it would just leave.  Nope!  Had to prop the door open and chase it out.  Bye-Bye Birdie!

 

So after all of the hullabaloo, I realized that I had just spent 30 minutes straight running up and down my stairs, doing squats every time that damn bird tried to swoop over my head (which was a lot), and laughing pretty much the entire time (and for a good hour after as I related the story to various people).  I got in a serious workout!  I worked all my leg muscles, my glutes, and my abs!  How do you like that? 

I decided that Yoga was the way to go for workout #2!  I obviously needed to relax after all the craziness!

 

Do you have any funny, crazy animal stories?