The Lovey Dovey

To find out why I christened the truck The Lovey Dovey, reference my poem and story Augury. A special thanks to Rachel Deeming for the suggestion! Her fiction is among the best I’ve read! I highly recommend you take a gander at her work here.

To discover why I had to put a thick piece of cardboard over the front of the truck, read on!

I started the Lovey Dovey. My partner Jose, who helps me load and unload the freight, was with me, and we both noticed it was idling a little high. I drive between two buildings right next to one another, so knowing I wasn’t going far, I took it across and backed it into the dock. As Jose was walking around the front from the passenger side, he stopped and called my attention.

A peek under the hood revealed a collection of thorny twigs jammed in the gap between the two front radiators. This was most certainly the reason for the high idling! It occurred to me then that I had seen a Northern Mockingbird fly away, startled, when I started the Lovey Dovey the day before. I recognized him by his white striped wings. I saw these lovely birds often emerging from the brush in the field behind the factory.

A beautiful bird in flight! Here’s a cool collection of pics I found while researching this piece. They show a male Northern Mockingbird's flight display, a mating ritual which I only realized I witnessed after looking it up.

I also discovered that after the female selects a mate, they both build the nest, the male laying the foundation, and the female the lining, so I suppose it was the male dropping these twigs.

Jose and I picked the twigs out carefully as the thorns on them were long, thin, and sharp. I know it’s not a real physical description, but thorns like that always call to my mind the word wicked. Wicked thorns.

We went in and unloaded our freight and drove back. I parked and turned off the truck. Before we could open our doors and get out, guess who came back? That’s right, Mr. Northern Mockingbird. Jose and I laughed. He flew away when we opened the doors, and I made a mental note to check the radiator when I came back out.

Of course, next trip, we had fresh gifts, wicked thorns and all. He was persistent. I wondered aloud what the bird must think about his nest moving and all his hard work disappearing. This was good for a laugh from Jose, and he mentioned Woody Woodpecker, but he said in Mexico, where he’s from, they called the cartoon El Pajaro Loco.

The Crazy Bird!

One of the main running gags on that show was this: someone comes to transplant Woody from his home in the tree, or prevent him from pecking at the trees. He takes his revenge and drives the aggressors away by playing a series of tricks on them, with hilarious results. Jose suggested perhaps this was the game afoot with our own Crazy Bird.

I’d already had two doves try to make a home in the cab. Now I had mockingbirds trying to nest in the engine. If I didn’t do something, The Lovey Dovey would be a multilevel birdhouse.

CONDORminium?

(I apologize. Dad here. Workin on the pun chops. Feel free to roll your eyes and sigh. Please. It’s the highest compliment you can pay me. Leave your own puns in the comments! Share the groaning pain!)

So my answer was to stick the board into the bumper and over the front radiator after I turned the truck off.

I walked in feeling confident that I foiled the crazy bird.

I came out to find the board tipped forward and wicked thorns mocking me from beneath the hood.

That’s right. Mocked. By a mockingbird. I mean… it’s in the name.

I cut some slats into the bottom of the board to seat it better into the front fender and wrote the name of the truck on it.

I thought perhaps this might serve as a sort of talismanic magic to drive the bird away, but it only ended up being an advertisement for the condorminium, because he still managed to get in there with some wicked thorns.

This repeated a couple times, until I finally figured out I could wedge a piece of wood between board and fender to keep it tight against the front. This did seem to deter el pajaro loco long enough to force him to make babies elsewhere, as I’ve still seen plenty of him around the yard but no more presents in the deluxe suite of The Lovey Dovey!

I’d be remiss if I did not take this time to also mention two other writers, who like Rachel, are tackling a story a day in as persistent a way as my crazy mocking mockingbird.

Gerard DiLeo

L.C. Schafer

Check out their work and support their efforts! Even if writing is for the birds, that only proves it makes us fly!