BIRD IN THE BUCKET

There’s a phrase that is now used often in our daily lives that originated from a situation that we encountered at my mom’s house three years ago.

We were still dating. Matt came over to pick me up for some sort of outing and when he arrived, my mom explained the recent events that had transpired as I was down stairs getting ready and missed this narration.

“The dog found a wounded bird huddled up on the side of the house under the wheelbarrow,” She explained, “We put it in a bucket in the garage so the dog couldn’t harass it. I don’t know what to do.”

It always seems that others tend to look to my husband for animal advice. I guess a forest ranger is a good candidate for that kind of information. He also runs a small animal ark at home. When we were dating, he owned lizards and fish and had spent six years at the Forest Service encountering, saving or scraping animals from the road. Animals were his passion and I guess it showed.

“Hm…” he thought, “Maybe I’ll take a look at him.”

As he was in the garage, I came upstairs. Where’d he go? The garage door opened. He raised his eyebrows.

I gave him a hug hello. He said in my ear, “You got a bird in a bucket.”I blushed and reached to cover my nose. Does he mean like a “bat in the cave”?

Matt threw his head back in a laugh and explained to me that what he spoke of was not a theoretical “bird” but an actual one. He held my hand and proceeded to walk me to the garage where he pointed to the poor injured fowl.
The phrase “bird in the bucket” is now used often when alerting each other that there may be a reason to inspect the nasal cavity. It always produces chuckles.