Birds of a, well, whatever

I work with a guy who has a different sense of humor. For instance, he finds it hilarious to flip people off just out of the blue. I must admit, it makes me laugh whenever I’m typing away at my keyboard and notice the flash of a middle finger out of the corner of my eye. It got me thinking, there are a lot of ways to give someone the bird. (There may be others I’m forgetting. Personally, I don’t usually flip anything off, except for maybe the all too frequent graduate school rejection letter.)

The shy apologetic bird – is the kind when your finger is only half way extended, and only two digits of the finger are distinguishable from the fist. The kind you have to hold down low around your belt, and can’t help but let fly to get something off your chest, but at the same time hope that no one else sees it.

The camouflage bird – is the type when you are agreeing with everything the person is saying, but at the same time you are pretending to scratch your cheek or push up your glasses, of course, with the middle finger. “No, no. That’s not what I meant at all. I was just scratching”.

The gimmick bird – is when the offender makes his hand a prop, like a trumpet, or when they pretend they are blasting down their fingers in a shooting gallery, or imagining their hand as a makeup case as they powder their nose. This one kind of annoys me. What are they doing, trying to be cute and mad at the same time?

The gunslinger bird – this is the classic quick draw, nothing up my sleeve, now you see it now you don’t, flash of the middle finger. The kind you do as you are walking by someone else’s desk, or getting ready to flee in terror from a group of big dudes.

The hello how are ya bird – this is the bird you give with the thumb fully extended. Often the bird is at a slight angle and held up in front of a smirking face, as if to say, “hey there, buddy, I’ve got a call for ya on line one”.

The Big Ben bird – this is the pie in the sky, fully extended, tight fisted, leaning Eiffel Tower exclamation point. It is usually held high above the head in protest of a bad driver or ignorant zoobie and often takes a mother hanging at the wrist to end its well deserved and drawn out duration.

The Hill Billy McGee bird – That guy actually just had four fingers cut off on accident as he worked on his Hemi. “What? You got a problem? No sir, I’s just wavin’ howdy.” It was a disaster when they put McGee on the Girl Scout Float in the Fourth of July parade. No boxes of Thin Mints were sold that year.