Two turtledoves.

Long ago and far away, in a distant land redolent with the fluminal reek of the shallow Muskenetcong, an elderly Eastern European woman whose primary claim to fame was her palmistry raised snow-white birds as a grim hobby. Many an afternoon I'd look across Liberty Street to her garage, above which the fowl waited to live, waited to die, and waited for an absolution that came with her adept egg-shaking population control.

Many who saw these creatures wheeling through the heavens around the self-proclaimed Chocolate Capital of the Western Hemisphere - a title it futilely attempted to wrest from Hershey, PA - thought that they were doves. Chunky, white doves. Doves, like those which were provided as sacrifice in the ancient world and which graced their tables later on in a startling variety of preparation. Doves, like the one which Noah sent forth from the Ark.

In reality, they were pigeons. Cornish-game-hen-sized rats on the wing, perpetually poised to take enormous, righteous dumps upon any shiny surface. What's more, these pigeons owed an allegiance to the old woman and formed an air-force of considerable might. Each morning, as she made her way to the church for her morning prayers, they followed her on the wing and supplanted themselves upon the spires and belfries of the sanctuary, awaiting her return home.

Oh, they had their enemies. Small y-chromosome-possessed children with slingshots made quick work of several, and supervising adults, gazing upon their newly-washed vehicles that had been festooned with white-hot bird excreta, usually looked the other way. Best still, as illustrated by my sister's youthful shrieking bedroom commentary that "one of the pigeons was eating another pigeon", they often met less pleasant ends by passing through the digestive systems of a largish legion of falcons that found the dumpy feather-lumps a rather satisfying feast.

And yet, on a frigid, moon-lit December night, with the scent of church incense still in your nostrils on the walk home from midnight mass, they were almost beautiful - hundreds of fluttering snowflakes set amid the canopy of the heavens.

And so, on this second day of Christmas, I am reminded of those "doves" and how no creature, no matter how repellent, is really completely an abomination.

Well, except for hagfish.

And, uh, lampreys.

And blackflies.

[and my pets]

Huh. Well, it was a nice thought.

Until tomorrow, I remain,

Domonic (IwieldedaslingshotlikeanAmazonmaiden) Potorti