Whites, Birds, and White Birds

Wings upon the Bird

I used to travel a lot, departing my home in a Minnesota state forest. Prior to a business trip to France, I picked out wallpaper for my main bedroom, a delicate print of small birds, vines, and flowers, understated and tasteful. I left my house key with a couple of businesswomen who painted and papered.

Months later, I returned. Everyone admired their work, perfect trim, invisible seams. Next evening my girlfriend showed up bearing food and wine. We adjourned to the bedroom. She glanced at the walls and asked one question.

Why is the wallpaper upside down?

Two professional paperhangers, three employees, four visitors, and *me*— Not one of us noticed what one girlfriend saw: Every tiny pear tree partridge was not perched, but clung desperately to little upside down twigs.

The paperhanging ladies couldn’t believe it. Hell, I couldn’t believe it. They begged me not to pass out their business cards. That was my first and last attempt to paper a room. I sometimes wonder what succeeding residents thought.

Birds upon the Wing

Not long ago, a Vietnamese-American woman (AKA @CorndogCalamari) advanced a curious hypothesis:

All white people have one thing in common: Birds in their homes.

Bird décor, that is… statuettes, ceramics, metal sculptures, paintings, etc. Not the Relationship Bird Theory advanced by Cosmo’s Science Department last year.

Valentine (goffin cockatoo, 30+yo)

‘All white people’ is a pretty broad generalization, even on Tik Tok. The funny thing is… she pretty much nailed it. It’s particularly funny for folks convinced of their exceptionalism to abruptly realize they have a picture of a peace dove, an American eagle, or perhaps a pink flamingo on Emphysema Uncle Joe’s 1950s souvenir ashtray.

Thinking *I* had no decorative items, I felt pretty smug. Valentine agreed. Valentine, er, my white, very white goffin cockatoo… a big unmistakeable bird… Wait, hold on, he is decorative but not exactly décor.

Then I realized, the girlfriend who discovered the inverted birds-of-a-bedroom in long ago Minnesota had hung two painted macaws high on my Florida walls. Not something I’d pick out, but who knows where birds come home to roost.

Even Alcatraz prisoners found birds to cheer their dreadful cells. Thus our observant ceramics birdwatcher seems to have stumbled upon somewhat of a truism.

Will my fellow crime writers seize upon this phenomenon as a mystery clue? Curious creatures want to know.