Growing up, my family vacationed almost every summer with another couple and their son. The husband, who we call Mr. S, was a practical joker. My parents had been friends with him since they were in their early twenties. When you were with him, there was never a dull moment. When he managed to get one of his jokes over on you, he had a particular cackling laugh that would escape his throat.
It was my senior year of High School, the last vacation our two families would ever take together. We flew to Florida, went to Disney World, Universal Studios, Daytona Beach and spent a couple of days touring a few wildlife preserves. We chased each other in golf carts and tried bungee jumping. It was a wonderful trip.
At one of the wildlife preserves, we had packed a picnic lunch. In Florida instead of flocks of seagulls hammering you for bread crumbs, these white ibises with long pointy beaks would follow you around. So, here we are eating our lunch when my mom decides to throw one of the white ibises a cracker. It promptly eats it up and then edges in closer.
“Honey, don’t feed the birds!” My dad exclaims.
We continue to eat and before long, a few more of these menacing looking birds fly over to us. My Dad is now annoyed at my mom for being the cause of it. We continue eating and watch as a few more birds fly in to pester us. I turn around to see Mr. S leaning up against a tree and looking concerned.
A few more minutes pass. The birds keep flying in! There are dozens surrounding our picnic table. There are dozens flying above us and more moving in from both land and air. My Dad is blaming the whole incident on my mom. We start getting dive bombed by these sharp beaked monsters as they attempt to steal food right from out of our hands! We’re being attacked!
We quickly start packing away our food. A crowd of tourists have formed around us and are laughing. My mom is starting to cry out in fear and then we hear Mr. S let out his signature cackling laugh. Behind his back, he has a plastic bag of snacks. With a grin, he flings one at our feet. He was secretly throwing food onto the ground around us, enjoying the entire incident from the protection of a tree. Another one of his practical jokes.
We all start yelling at him. We become a group of arguing tourists surrounded by a flock of white ibises, making a scene at a nature preserve. All the while Mr. S is smugly laughing. As we attempt to escape the birds, high tailing it away from the area, a ranger pulls up in his truck. Uh Oh! We’re in trouble. Sure enough, we get a pretty strict warning about feeding the birds and of course we all point fingers at the perpetrator. The ranger is unimpressed and informs us that if we have one more incident, he’s going to ask us to leave.
I know we should have been ashamed over his behavior or maybe just a little embarrassed but we weren’t. It only served as another hilarious moment in my family’s history. I’ve carried that laughter with me and incorporated it into my own crazy family life. Although, to this day, I have never fed the birds.
