Poo and coo dispel any bird flu doubts: It’ll be dropping in

This is a bittersweet moment in Spokane history as we celebrate the 30th and final Bloomsday.

Oh, a few Bloomies may be still running this time next year – but only for their lives. The rest will be like me, toes up and coughing feathers.

Life as we know and enjoy it is about to end, thanks to a disease more insidious and infectious than “American Idol.”

The bird flu is coming to get us.

You can’t read a paper or listen to a news broadcast these days without being scared silly by the latest developments on our impending winged doom.

Stores are hawking bird flu survival supplies.

There’s even a bird flu movie of the week. That should tell you how serious this is.

I saw a panhandler holding a cardboard sign the other day.

“Will work for vaccine,” it read.

Of course, up until a couple of weeks ago I was a bird flu doubter. I thought it was just another one of those end-of-the-world hoaxes, like the Y2K computer meltdown or the Elton John marriage.

Now I know better. Bird flu is not just real, but my home has been selected by the avian enemy as Spokane’s pandemic staging ground.

I discovered this the other morning when I awoke to otherworldly noises.

“Coo.”

“Coo-coo.”

“Coo-coo-ca-choo …”

In my dazed state of half-sleep a thought came to mind: “This must be what the inside of Steve Eugster’s head sounds like.”

Slowly I emerged from my fog. I got up and stuck my head out a window – and gasped.

A dried river of pigeon poo was smeared all over a lower section of roof.

Life at Casa de Clark is now like a scene from that old Hitchcock movie, “The Birds.”

We’ve lived in our house 20 years. Like any homeowners we’ve been besieged by the usual pests: marauding squirrels, stray cats, door-to-door religious kooks …

But never any pigeon problems.

Now these winged rats have put down roots like bored baby boomers in one of those overpriced downtown condos.

There can be only one reason. This is a bird flu advance team.

If it weren’t for the flu and the poo and the coo, I could almost coexist with them.

Pigeons have their redeeming qualities. For example, they’ve all but covered my gas meter with their vile droppings.

I’ve often thought of mailing a similar message to those Avista crooks.

The entire country is suffering from bird flu panic. Studies show that 50 percent of people exposed to bird flu news will begin filling their basements with freeze-dried food and bottled water.

The other half will start molting.

Spokane doesn’t deserve this. We’re barely recovered from last year’s plague.

Remember the West Denial Virus?

In marginally related bird habitat news, Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession recently proclaimed the Turkish filbert as Spokane’s tree of the year.

It’s encouraging to see Hession finally living up to his strong mayor potential.

But a Turkish filbert?

How can any city be taken seriously with such a stupid-sounding official tree? As an arbor authority noted, we’d get more respect adopting the official tree of Gonzaga University men’s basketball team – the choke cherry.

But getting back to disease-carrying birds, I won’t let these pigeons use me like a courthouse statue without a fight.

I’m putting some of those stray cats up on my roof. If that doesn’t work I’ll hire a kid with a pellet gun.

But first I need to lie down.

All this bird flu talk has me feeling beakish.