Dead Seagulls

(Pre-Script: This post should be read as the songs, "Other Side Of The World," then "If I Die Young," #34 and #38 on the playlist, play in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on those songs in that order, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

I guess I never noticed before today how many dead seagulls a girl can find at the beach. I swear I saw at least 5 seagull carcasses, and on a smallish patch of beach, too. This is starting to sound like some kind of ecological message about saving the planet, but the thing is, and this is what disturbed me about the situation today, seagulls aren't even pleasant when they are alive. Dead, they're good at decomposing and stinking up your airspace. Alive, they are good at crapping on your head and chasing around your potato chip clutching toddler. Either way, they are rude. Either way, they are only good at ruining your picnic.
I talked to a woman a few years ago who told me that because she was from Illinois, she had always thought that seagulls were really cool birds. To her landlocked mindset, seagulls seemed like some kind of magical, mystical creature, like something out of Greek mythology or something symbolic of freedom, so close they were to the ocean and the sky and therefore God and such. It wasn't until she moved her family to a California beach town that she understood the mindset of those who actually live among seagulls; that they are, more accurately, rat birds.
Unfortunately, by the time she and her family understood this, her daughter already had seagulls tattooed all across her back.
I don't mean to sound heartless; I am truly not pro-extinction of any species. Save the Seagulls and let's live together in harmony and give peace a chance and all of that. But it was clear to me, today, at least, that feathers and stink are all that that remains of a life spent squawking after the hopes of someone else's cookie crumbs.

-XOXO,