However,

Dedicated readers of this blog will know that a year or so ago I went on and on about the pigeons. I haven't said much lately, any more than residents who live near a once-toxic airstrip would bother to comment on the spring balloons and gentle kites that now fly there--that's how successful last year's arsenal of prods, random zaps, netting and shovels has been in showing the pigeons who's boss around here.

However, this evening I went down to find the top tube of my bike frame ridged with pigeon shit. It wasn't random pigeon shit either. After careful study, I deciphered the pigeons' shit code this way: thanks for the cool bike frame, asshole.

Borrowing the logic of cold war-era American foreign policy, I upped the armaments, coating the frame with crankcase sludge from a '55 Olds, toxic to pigions (and not, as it turned out, much good when chafed between one's thighs).

So that's one for the pigeons, but just the one.