In which a giant flying demon empties its colon...on me.

Let's have a story, shall we?

Last weekend was quite lovely indeed, with beautiful spring weather. We had a friend in town staying with us, and we all went to nearby Toledo on Saturday because we like to.

Toledo is quite nice.


We ate more mazepan. This brick lasted about 7 minutes.

On Sunday, we got up early to attend the first service at church because I've been wanting to go to Madrid's big flea market and we needed to get back home quicker.
We were thwarted in our effort to attend church by a pesky little half-marathon that boxed us in to our neighborhood, so we abandoned our plans and just left earlier for El Rastro, the flea market.

It's known to have pickpockets who target tourists, so I made sure to only carry a few euro in my purse, I left my phone at home, and made sure Josh had the keys and money secured in his front pants pocket.

Our delightful children bemoaned their fate of having to shop at an "outside junk store." In their defense, it was incredibly crowded, and from their height they mostly had views of other peoples bottoms. Eventually, when they self-proclaimed to be on death's doorstep from starvation, we decided to split up-- I would take the kids home for lunch and a rest, and Josh and Frances would go find a spot for a lunch out.

Josh walked us to a metro station, and we said our goodbyes. Three minutes later, I realize that I failed to get the housekeys from my dearly beloved.
We raced back out of the metro station, but to no avail. We didn't know what direction he'd gone in, so we were on our own, keyless and phoneless. And hungry. With only the 5 euro that I had in my purse.

So we decided to turn it into an adventure and see how we could live off the land* with 5 euro until such a time as Josh would return to the house. We decided to stay close to home so we could check in at the apartment from time to time in case he realized that we were keyless.

*term used loosely

So we took the metro back to our normal stop, and headed to the nearby market. After all, when you're trying to feed 3 people with 5 euro, you're not going to go to a restaurant.
We bought a package of sandwiches, and a bag of potato chips. Alex voted no to a bottle of water, saying we could get that for free from a park fountain.
The kids were all about our grand adventure at this point.

We took our food over to Retiro and dined on a bench, one sandwich per child, each paying their tax of one bite each for mama. We ate chips. We drank free fountain water.

The astute reader will notice that Alex is wearing the same thing two days in a row.
That's a thing we do.

Also, in trying not to wake our guest on Sunday morning and having forgotten to remove clothes from Alex's room, it was my only option.

Fact: It's more pleasant to be locked out in beautiful weather.

Fact: It's also quite pleasant to be locked out with that guy. Because he's usually almost always most of the time quite pleased with life.

After finishing our food, we counted our remaining money-- not enough for 2 popsicles from the park vendor. But it might be enough for popsicles from the market.
So we walked back by the piso, verifying that Josh was indeed not home yet, and then back to the market. We had just enough to cover a box of 6 popsicles.
We made our way to a nearby bench and began to enjoy the treat.

I sat next to Alex, with the popsicle box between us, and Derek to the right of Alex.

I realize the picture makes me look like a liar.
You know how most sharks have to keep swimming in their sleep to stay alive? Derek's like that. If he's not moving constantly, he will die. 

Just when we were discussing how fun it is to be locked out when you have enough money for popsicles, out of nowhere somebody threw something at me.

Mud? Vomit?

I didn't know, but it came at me with such force that I looked about to determine from whence the assault had come.

I may also have said some naughty words.

But there was no one about.
I began to piece it all together.
There, on the popsicle box, was a bunch of bird crap. Bird crap that landed with such force that it exploded outward and covered my neck and chest.
And my popsicle.
And Alex's popsicle.
And Alex's hand that was holding her popsicle.

Derek was unscathed.

The sheer quantity and quality of the load of crap led me to believe that this must have been the rare flying ostrich-hawk-eagle-vulture-elephant-bird hybrid of Madrid. And I think he'd had Mexican food the night before.
And possibly a recent enema.

The fun was over. I was locked out of my house, covered in bird crap. I began wiping the nasty stuff off using leaves ripped from a bush while muttering phrases that I shouldn't repeat.

I collected my wits, made Derek throw away his popsicle as well just in case, took our three clean popsicles from inside the poop-box, and walked back to the park.

If you think the walk of shame is what happens on college campuses, you've never walked 2 city blocks covered in vomit-like bird feces and have people look at you as if you don't realize you've been bathed in caca.

We went directly to a fountain that I practically took a bath in to rid myself of the poo.
We ate our popsicles, we went home, Josh arrived 2 minutes later.

I took a shower.

The end.

I hate birds.