When Hummingbirds Attack

4 Santa Clauses walk into a bar…

Who doesn’t love hummingbirds? They are such beautiful birds. Seriously, how can anyone not love hummingbirds?

Well, I knew someone once who was deathly afraid of hummingbirds. His name was Harold. He was an acquaintance from work back when I lived in Southern California so long ago. Harold always wore very “loud” clothing.

A group of seven of us workers met one evening for dinner at a restaurant in Palm Springs. We arrived at the restaurant parking lot in two cars. As we walked across the parking lot to the entrance to the restaurant a swarm of hummingbirds descended on Harold.

Harold was wearing a bright red shirt. The hummingbirds — there must have been at least two dozen of them — flew directly at Harold and then stopped and hovered around him. Some of the birds would dart in at him then back up then dart again.

I saw the whole thing. The hummingbirds left the rest of us alone. They were exclusively focused on Harold and his red shirt. Hal was frantically waving his arms to keep the birds at bay. He was also screaming like a girl.

Once inside the restaurant we got a table by a large window. Once our orders were taken, conversation centered around hummingbirds and clothing.

After a few minutes I glanced out the window and there, just inches outside of the glass, was a hummingbird hovering in the air looking inside — no doubt at Harold’s bright red shirt.

And that is when I started thinking about Santa Claus… (Not the real Santa Claus but rather those men who dress up like Santa Claus and ring bells on the sidewalk outside of department stores.)

Four Santa Clauses were sitting at a bar drinking beer and shooting tequila.

Santa Claus #1 said to Santa Claus #3, “Boy, you look like you had a rough day.”

“Yeah I did,” replied Santa Claus #3. “You know what? I hate kids. They were just awful today. One boy came up to me and kicked me in the shin, said he wanted to see if I was real. I really wanted to kick him back, the little shit.”

Santa Claus # 4 spoke up, “That’s nothing. My day was even worse. First of all the little clapper in my bell broke off. I tried to fix it but the little metal thingie just broke in two. So I put the bell down and just stood there in my red Santa suit. People still put money in the pot with me just standing there. I started thinking, What do we need a bell for anyway? They’re so annoying. It was a relief not hearing that bell. But then after a while I was viciously attacked by a swarm of hummingbirds. There must have been a hundred of them. I had to run inside to get away from them.”

Santa Claus #2 laughed heartedly (just like the real Santa Claus). “Ha! Now you know why we ring bells. You see, hummingbirds are attracted to the color red but they are repelled by the clanging of a bell. We ring those infernal bells to keep from being attacked by hummingbirds!”

Santa Claus #4 picked up his shot of tequila and held it in front of him, “So that’s why we ring those gosh darn bells. Huh, I didn’t know that.” He then poured the tequila down his throat.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction. (This was originally published at Medium on December 2, 2017.)

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