The Birds Tried to Kill Me Last Night
It was midnight. Hunger had me by the throat.
The fridge? A crime scene.
One can of Spam—rusted around the lid like a bad tooth—and a pizza box so old it could’ve been carbon dated.
I wasn’t about to play chef. I wanted food now.
So I grabbed my keys and stepped into the night, heading for the gas station like it was a speakeasy for the starving.
Cheddar and sour cream chips. Cheese puffs. Not the point.
This story isn’t about the snacks.
It’s about the birds.
You ever see Hitchcock’s The Birds? Black and white nightmare fuel. The kind of movie that makes you scan the sky every time a feather flutters. That’s been me since I was a kid—parking lots, open fields, always half-expecting a kamikaze gull to take me out.
But last night, it wasn’t gulls. It was sparrows. Two of them.
And they didn’t just fly near me—they came for me.
I’ve got these old metal awnings around my house. They hold heat from the day, so the birds treat them like five-star hotels. Been that way for decades. My son Vinnie once called me The Bird Man. I’d sit on the porch, close enough to touch one of those tiny brown feathered mothers as she fed her chicks. Hummingbirds would hover nearby like they were guarding me.
Lately, there’s been this one sparrow hanging under the back door awning. Cute little guy. Two nights ago, he brought a girlfriend. No nest, just… a sleepover for warmth. But she was twitchy. Anytime I opened the door, she bolted into the dark, and he followed like a panicked rookie cop.
Apparently, they upgraded their address. Because when I opened the front door at midnight… they exploded into the air like winged shrapnel.
I’m six foot, 270 pounds, and suddenly I’m dodging, juking, bent-knee dancing to keep from getting a beak to the eye. One of them nearly got inside. I could see it—me, chasing a sparrow through the living room at midnight. No thank you!
Eventually, they cleared the porch. I survived. Barely.
But the night wasn’t done with me.
See, my daughter-in-law Kaylee once had a bat buzz her head in the same yard. They’d parked under the sycamore. That’s exactly where I parked last night. I half-expected sonar squeaks in my ear. But there was no bat. Thank you, Jesus.
Inside the gas station, I noticed a dark smear on my clean yellow t-shirt. Chocolate? No problem.
Except… no.
Not chocolate.
Bird poop.
I’d been marked. And I’d just stood there at the counter chatting with the clerk, oblivious, baptized in sparrow waste.
And that’s when it hit me.
How many of us walk around like that? Not with droppings on our shirts—but with something worse.
Carrying the stench of the world. Wearing its shadows. Smiling like everything’s fine when the enemy has already tagged us.
We’re conformed to the same fears, the same rules, the same corporate mandates. Marching into gas stations with the same anxieties as everyone else—divebombed by demons we can’t see.
Romans 13:14 says, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.”
And Ephesians 6 talks about the armor of God—helmet, breastplate, shield, sword. We teach our kids to pretend to put it on. But here’s the truth—pretend armor won’t stop real bullets.
You don’t wear Christ like a brand logo. You put Him on by mindset. By being mindful of His righteousness, His truth, His faith, His Word.
That’s your shield.
That’s your covering.
That’s the difference between walking in marked or walking in armored.
Because if you don’t…
You’ll end up just like me—standing under the fluorescent lights of this world, grinning at the cashier, completely unaware that you’ve already been hit.