A "Thank goodness" moment

Ever have a "Thank goodness!" moment?  You know, like Thank goodness I didn't ask her when the baby is due (because she isn't pregnant). We've all been close to embarrassing ourselves from time to time, either by jumping to a conclusion or simply from not understanding something that is new to us. My friend Kelli at Countin' My Blessings yesterday wrote an entry called How Embarrassing. Reading that entry made me smile and reminded me of a time when I was new in my neighborhood.

The house behind us sits perpendicular to ours. Our bedroom and a spare bedroom window were at the back of our home, facing a dining room and bathroom window in the home behind us. Bill and I hadn't met our backyard neighbor but had heard stories of his eccentricity and how two wives had divorced him because of his odd ways.

I was all of 23 when this happened. It was my custom then to take clothes from the dryer and sit on our bed to fold the laundry and put things away.

That summer day, with the windows open, every time I entered our bedroom, I heard a wolf whistle. Wolf Whistle Collection (sound effects).wav 
No! It couldn't be that the odd man was watching me! I experimented by going into the other bedroom. Sure enough...I got whistled at there too!

When Bill came home, I told him what had been happening. I wasn't vain and did not think I was so young and irresistible, but I was worried that we had a weirdo living behind us.

 We were so new to the neighborhood, we only felt close enough to one couple to ask them their opinion of the man and how to handle this situation. As I told the story, they began to lose their composure. I was a little annoyed that they weren't taking me seriously but continued until they were laughing so hard they had to hold their stomachs.

Yes, it was true that our neighbor was an odd man, but he wasn't my male admirer. It was his Mynah bird!

 Thank goodness we hadn't gone to confront our neighbor or made a police report! I never did meet our backyard neighbor. He moved a few months later. The neighbors who took such pleasure in my story moved away a few years later but we never see each other without one of the four either whistling or mentioning a bird.

Sadly,the years have not been kind to me. If Bill is late in filling the bird feeders in the backyard, an occasional bird might peck at the window to the room where I have my computer, but no bird has whistled at me in 34 years. I guess I am just not a cute little chick anymore.