The Slice: Those dastardly crows aren’t fooling anybody

This is an autumnal story of Spokane birdbrains in action. It began with a thud on my roof and then a rolling sound.

“What the?” I muttered, heading outside to investigate.

Nothing.

But in the days that followed, those noises would be repeated.

Painstakingly piecing together circumstantial evidence, I developed a theory: Crows are dropping apples on my roof.

No, I haven’t actually seen them do this. Whenever I step outside after the latest fruit-bombing, the big black birds regard me with what I’m sure is feigned nonchalance.

It’s as if they are saying, “Hey, Chief, what’s the panic?”

I just know they laugh after I go back inside.

You can’t trust crows. Ask anybody.

OK, let’s back up. I do, in fact, have an apple tree in my back yard. And there are lots of little apples on the ground.

But suppose you were a bird and wanted to eat the seeds and simply didn’t care to mess with the tough skin? What would you do?

Well, you might pick up an apple and carry it aloft and then drop it on something hard — my roof, for instance.

(I’d like to point out that there are quite a few split-apart apples on the ground around my house.)

That sort of advanced thinking is not altogether unheard of for crows, said Madonna Luers of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. They have been known to drop nuts in roadways and apparently wait for cars to drive over them and crack the shells.

Luers wasn’t quite ready to sign off on my theory, however. She suggested setting up a camera and trying to obtain photographic evidence.

I’d do it. I really would. Except I know what I’d end up with — dozens of pictures of preening crows acting all innocent.

You see, I don’t think these birds are doing this just to open apples. I think they’re doing it to bug me.

There’s no need to go over a lot of ancient history here. But let’s just say I’ve been free with my critiques of their, um, singing voices.

Hey, how would you like it if you had to hear CAW CAW CAW every other time you took out the trash?

Also, I’ve written that gatherings of crows remind me of the movie “The Birds.” I can see how that could be taken the wrong way.

And then there’s my friendship with the neighbor’s cat.

Still, is any of that a reasonable excuse to mess with my mind?

And how do those feathered fiends know when I’m trying to take a nap? I’ll be seconds away from dreamland and then…THUD.

I’m sure those crows find it all quite hilarious.

But I’m not going to sink to their level. I’m not going to seek revenge.

For one thing, I have the dignity of humankind to uphold. And secondly, I’m starting to wonder if maybe it isn’t the squirrels that are behind all this.

•Today’s Slice question: Who is the Inland Northwest’s most beloved school bus driver?