Being stressed while at lake is for the birds

I was stressed. Seriously stressed. It doesn’t happen often at the lake, but this time it was bad.

It all started innocently when a friend asked if we would watch her family’s beloved cockatiel for a few weeks while they were on vacation. Being an animal-loving family, we readily agreed. One of the requests of the owner was that “Sunny” be allowed to fly around the house for a little while every day to stretch her wings. Fine.

So, all is well for the first week … until that fateful day. (You already know what is going to happen, don’t you?) My boys (7 and 8 at the time) were doing flashcards, or something that makes me sound like a great mom, and I was cleaning the bathroom (really). The bird was out taking her daily indoor exercise. Next thing I know, I hear my oldest chanting, “Please come down, please come down, please come down, MOM!!!!”

I ran outside, yellow rubber gloves flying, to discover the unthinkable. The bird – the beloved best-pet-ever-part-of-the-family bird, was flying high above the treetops, circling around and around with wild birds, chirping happily.

Now, normally I don’t freak. I’m generally not a freaker. In fact, we had had several instances of pet misplacings, and all had worked out fine.

Like the time the guinea pig ran into the woodsy brush, and the kids couldn’t remember where exactly she went in. That time, a little bird sat on a branch right above her and chirped until we found her. (I kid you not).

Or the time our 6-month-old golden retriever wandered off without her collar and was gone for two days. We found her down the road, happily being loved by two little girls who had renamed her Rosie.

Or the time the school classroom snake we were watching for the summer (that was a first and a last) got out in the house three days before school started. Mmmm… I guess I did kind of freak that time, but for different reason. He was in the bottom of a woven wastebasket under some garbage.

Hey, I even lost my boys for half an hour one afternoon. I found them, thanks to the neighbor’s dogs barking from their kennel, in the woods. They had followed a bee and were “looking for honey” (thanks a lot Pooh Bear). OK, that’s not really a very good example, because I actually did pretty much freak that time. But generally…

All right, back to my story … bird out, Mom freaked. We spent the next three days binoculars in hand, calling, climbing, searching, listening, asking. … Nothing.

Our friends and neighbors were very encouraging. “Oh, once they go up, they can’t get down, due to air currents.” “It’s too cold out at night for him to survive,” and my personal favorite, “Owls eat cockatiels.” Great. Thank you all.

I had no number to reach his owners, but they were due back any day. Finally the call came. They were having car trouble and wouldn’t be back on schedule. Would we like their parents to come get their baby or could he stay an extra day? Oh my gosh.

Well, a gallon of tears, a long letter of apology, and probably a funeral service later, everything had settled down. I was sitting on the beach with the phone in my basket when Sunny’s owner called. “I’ve been looking in the lost and found pet section of the paper, and … where’s Sunup Bay?” Again, I kid you not.

I have no idea how that bird made it two miles or more across a bay and over a hill to the deck of a house. Luck was with him, when the owner of the house happened to see him, just before her cat pounced. Luck was with him again, when she chose to advertise for his owners.

Well, all’s well that ends well, I guess, except for the few years I aged that week. I suppose if the unbelievable is going to happen, it will happen at the lake – where life is different, timeless, magical … forgiving.

But there’s one thing I know for sure. I will never baby-sit another bird as long as I live. I kid you not.