I just got home from work. I'm sitting in the library, looking at comic books, when I hear a rattling bang in or near the kitchen. What could it be? Simon wonders, too, and he goes to look. I don't get up.

A few minutes pass. I'm leafing through my comic book. WHAM! It's that rattling bang again. I'm puzzled. Is Kris home, slamming closed the lid to the yard waste container? Did the mail carrier just drop two heavy boxes on the front porch? Is somebody outside vandalizing the house?

I get up to check.

Simon is sitting between the kitchen and the dining room, ears pricked, staring out the big window over the sink. There's a group of pigeons on the feeder. You don't suppose...?

I do suppose. There is a stunned pigeon on the ground, standing there, looking even stupider than usual. There are two new birdprints on the window. (There's also a big, juicy one from last fall that I won't let Kris clean — it cracks me up.)

Pigeons are SO DUMB. They're like flying bricks.