I used to think that Alfred Hitchcock's horror film "The Birds" was a little far fetched.
It's not. And apparently, he'd spent some time on South Padre Island.
Years ago, we visited South Padre, Corpus Christi, and San Antonio, Texas with family. We, along with my brother-in-law Tom's family, were there to celebrate my nephew Nathaniel's (aka Nato's) 5-year mark of being cancer-free. It was a time of gratitude, rejoicing, and... public embarrassment.
There were several "incidents". The first happened on South Padre Island.
As we walked onto the beach, I noticed a lot of signs ominously warning DO NOT FEED THE SEAGULLS.
"Who would be stupid enough to feed seagulls?" I asked Chad.
Apparently, I would.
Because an hour or two later, Chad and my kids were down the beach playing in the surf, and I decided I was ready for lunch. I took out my 6" Subway sandwich and was talking with my sister Jen as I prepared to dig in.
Here's where various versions of WHAT HAPPENED NEXT all intersect.
According to Jen, I was holding my sandwich far out to the side of my body, gesturing with it, to make a point as I chattered.
I don't remember that.
What I recall is that suddenly there was a SWOOOSH, and a brazen bird catapulted into my hand, taking a snatch of my sandwich. Within seconds, she had sent out some sort of Satellite Bat Signal to all 4500 of her cousins, saying, "Hey! Free Food!" Seagulls began dive bombing me in droves, aggressively brushing against my head and arm. It was worse than when Costco refreshed stock on Lysol Wipes and Toilet Paper during the Pandemic Shortage of 2020.
Not gonna lie, it was a freaky thing to have the kamikaze bird pack waging warfare on me. In my panic, rather than just pulling the sandwich into my chest, or into the cooler, I waved my arm (and the sandwich) around frantically trying to shoo the birds, but also apparently communicating, "Here it is! Right here! See it??"
Jen and my family tell me there also was quite a bit of screaming going on at this point.
It culminated with me, in a desperate act of self preservation, finally screeching loudly, "FINE, YOU STUPID BIRDS! HAVE THE STUPID SANDWICH!" (I'm not particularly eloquent under bird attack) and throwing the seagull-pecked sandwich as far as I could. Which ended up not being very far at all. (Because apparently I'm also not a particularly good arm under bird attack.) The birds all descended like a plague of Moses and the sandwich was completely gone in seconds.
Now switching to Chad and my kids' perspective. They heard a great hullabaloo. (Sidenote... isn't that I great word? I need to find reasons to use that more in everyday sentences. Like, "so sorry I'm late for the executive meeting. There was quite a hullabaloo in the support department."). They looked down the beach and saw a huge cloud of birds. That was weird... Then they saw someone in the middle of the birds, waving their arms and screaming and throwing things. I'm told Aerin asked in shock, "Dad??!! Is that Mom???"
Chad glanced closer, said, in a singsong voice, "Yup. That's our Mom." and then nonchalantly went back to bodysurfing. Because apparently Mom being in the middle of an Alfred Hitchcock-esque scene, complete with screaming, was just same old, same old.
My older kids were a little more bothered than Chad that their mother was Creating a Scene and that Everyone on the Beach Was Staring at Her.
Which ended up being the theme of that Texas trip for my young teens: "How Many Ways Can My Mother Embarrass Me In Crowded Public Places?"
They were in that early teen stage when you are absolutely certain that every person in the junior high is aware of the pimple on your nose. And having a mother who is a magnet for public humiliation was a bit of a trial for them. Especially when it meant that people were staring at them. Guilt by association.
For instance, a few days later, the kids and I were walking along San Antonio's famous, lovely, and quite crowded River Walk. Perhaps my shoe was untied; maybe it was a moment of depth perception failure; but either way, while climbing up stairs, I suddenly found myself sprawled flat on the River Walk. I was not hurt, but I was completely down. And people tend to notice things like that.
Aerin briefly paused, looked at the sight of me awkwardly splayed against the stairs, raised an eyebrow, and said, "Nice." Then she and Morgan walked ahead, pretending they didn't know me. Annie was young enough that she didn't mind being seen with a mother draped across the River Walk.
But what Aerin and Morgan didn't realize is that I was saving the Best for Last.
A day later we went to Sea World with our group of fellow Nato-Celebrators. While there, we went to the Shamu the Whale show, which was held in a large arena.
Prior to the show, I was chatting with my sister Melissa. I love to chat with Melissa. So perhaps I was a bit distracted. Melissa was sitting in front of her in-laws (which included her father-in-law, a distinguished federal judge). The announcer began the show by expressing gratitude for all of the selfless men and women protecting our freedom by serving in the military. The announcer invited everyone to stand and give these brave men and women a standing ovation.
So I stood and clapped. Because I am a Proud American and I am very grateful for the freedoms I enjoy. And I applaud the military whenever I can.
Here's where my mind just seemed to shift into super-slo-mo.
For instance, I noticed that those around me were a bit slow to rise to clap. But just thought they were taking their time.
Then, as I stood, enthusiastically clapping, I looked around the arena, and noticed there were only a dozen or so people standing besides me. "That's odd," I thought, "I had always heard Texas was a really patriotic state. Strange..."
I really did think that.
The spell was finally broken when Aerin, sitting four or five people from me, leaned over and hissed loudly, with horror in her voice,
"MOM!!!
SIT!!!
DOWN!!!!"
Things finally clicked, and I suddenly realized that I had misunderstood the announcer. He'd asked for the military to stand so they could be applauded. Not for the audience to stand. So I had stood among other military personnel, in a huge auditorium, clapping loudly for (supposedly) myself.
I slowly and casually slid down to my seat, trying to act like it was no big deal. Just a seventh inning stretch people, nothing to see here. The Shamu spectators around me watched this with interest.
I can only imagine what Melissa's in-laws were thinking. "Hmmmm... did you know Christy served in the military?" "I don't think she did?" "Why is she pretending to be military?" "And by the way, did you see her back at the beach with the birds?"
I honestly don't know why it took me so long to compute that I really shouldn't be standing in that crowd. It's frankly a little disturbing.
But it is something I think about whenever people talk about "standing for what you believe" and "standing out in a crowd". Sometimes you have to stand alone. Sometimes you have to applaud yourself, because others may not. Sometimes you may feel completely different and conspicuously so in a huge stadium of people. It isn't enjoyable, but it's okay. You'll survive.
(Unless you feed the seagulls at South Padre Island.)
