why'd we pick the fuckwit bird to represent peace?

So there's this ladder on our balcony.

The Guy, for whatever reason, bought it one day. This was before we met, so naturally I had no say in the matter; he's used it maybe once in the three years that we've been together, and he clings to it possessively as though it is the final repository of all his masculine dreams. "You're not going to get rid of it," he said when I asked him where it came from. "It's mine. It's staying with me."

"I don't want to throw it away. I was just asking--"

"MINE."

It's useless to tell him I have no interest in it. The Guy is convinced that I am intent on slowly pecking away any remnants of manly independence left in him. In the Guy's world, his hair was just the first step, and never mind that it was his idea. Why does he think he's waging a losing battle against domestication? Jeff Foxworthy told him. On TV. Comedy Central. The Blue Collar Comedy Tour. He hasn't slept well since.

It came with him from the old apartment where he spent the last of his true bachelor days, jammed into a U-Haul truck that rode so low, speed bumps nearly ripped out the cab floor. In the new apartment -- mine -- it spent a few inglorious days roaming about the place before the Guy finally found a place for it.

This is our balcony.

You'll notice how our view of the great outdoors is a fenced-off affair with a large wooden of lattice framing its boundaries. My old roommate and I once spoke to the building manager about having it taken down.

Turns out his reason for putting it was the very reason we wanted it removed. "You're looking at it the wrong way around," he said. "It's not that you can't see out, but that other people can't see in." It only took a few days of consideration to bring home the practicality of this perspective. I have mentioned before that we live in a ghetto, and one of the side-effects of that is that there are always people hanging out on balconies or staircases nearby, gaping eagerly through other people's balcony windows to see if they can see something interesting.

There's plenty of interesting stuff happening in our apartment, some of which would get us arrested under decency laws. The lattice stayed. So did the ever-optimistic audience.

It took some side for the ever-present, long-limbed, obstructive presence of the ladder to finally get on his nerves. One day he tripped on it. The following day, the Guy hammered up a board and some hooks onto the lattice and hung the ladder up. This was over a year ago. If you look on the far right of the balcony photo, you can actually see it: red top, silver legs, silver rungs. You may not be able to tell, but the ladder is actually pretty well settled against the lattice, so the top flat shelf of the ladder, which is not straight but is actually at a rather steep angle, is angled down towards the balcony floor. If you put something on it, it would slide off and go boom.

Get the picture? Good. Now let me introduce our local mourning doves to you: Twiddletwit 1 and Twiddletwit 2.

A few months ago we were lolling about in the bedroom, when we were suddenly roused by the most incredible flailing and banging out in the balcony. It sounded as though someone had picked up a koala and had decided, much to its dismay, to dribble it against our plate glass doors. The koala was registering its protest with strangled cooing. Too apathetic to do anything about it, we lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling, hoping against hope that the koala-hurler would grow bored of the sport and let the koala go. Eventually, he did. We went back to sleep.

A few days later, the Guy, doing some grilling on the balcony (see the grill? That's from Sweet Pipes) called me out to look at a pile of twigs that had materialized just under the ladder. "You know what? I think it was one of those stupid doves, after all. I think some birds tried to build a nest out here," he said. "Look."

I looked. It was not a large pile of twigs. "Eh," I said. "I think it's just the plants." I have mentioned before that the balcony is the last hospice for dead and dying experiments in gardening. Tomato plants from the summer before still drop pathetically in the corner of the balcony, periodically dropping long, dessicated bones onto the floor as a reminder of my past inadequacies. I let them. It seems to make them happy.

A few mornings ago, I was suddenly jerked awake by the Guy, who charged into the bedroom and shouted at me. "YUHRI! Wake up! Look!" He scampered out, only to come dashing in again when I moved too slowly for his liking. "LOOK!"

I dragged myself out to the living room, where he was flattened up against the plate glass door, ogling the ladder. "See?" He was triumphant. "I told you. I told you they were building a nest out there."

"Enh." I lacked my glasses, so squinted blindly in the general direction of the ladder. Fuzzy, motionless, dark blob. "You're right." Easier than arguing. I attempted to head back to bed.

The Guy was having none of it. He grabbed me by the shoulders and steered me back to the glass. "Can't you see them? Look! LOOK! Where are your glasses?" He hustled off to find them.

There were, indeed, two mourning doves attempting to build a nest on top of our ladder. Our slanted ladder shelf, no less. One of the birds, Twiddletwit 1, was firmly nestled on the metal, immensely pleased with herself. Somehow during the night, they had managed to create a bizarre, straggly fringe of twigs around her ribs, rather like a combover that had encountered too much wind. Twiddletwit 2, meanwhile, was off harvesting more twigs, which he passed on to Twiddletwit 1 for more rib-stuffing.

"Idiots," I decided, and stationed myself on the sofa for Twiddletwit-watching.

The Guy kissed me on the forehead and went off on a motorcycle ride.

It was around 10:00 a.m. that the inevitable happened; Twiddletwit 1, with her weak grasp of physics, decided to try standing up. Gravity, who had just been waiting for her chance, pounced. With a great crash and splatter, the entire nest slid down around Twiddletwit 1's ankles and smashed to the balcony floor.

The Twiddletwit couple was baffled. Husband joined wife on the ladder shelf and loitered, dithering.

Twiddletwit 2: "What the hell happened?"

Twiddletwit 1: "Someone stole our nest!"

Twiddletwit 2: "Where did you put it?"

Twiddletwit 1: "It was right here! It was right here! Just a second ago. I could swear it was here, and then I stood up, and it was gone. Is it on the other side?"

Twiddletwit 2: (peering at the other side of the ladder shelf) "It's not here. What did it look like?"

Twiddletwit 1: "What did what look like?"

Twiddletwit 2: "The nest."

Twiddletwit 1: "A nest? We had a nest?"

Twiddletwit 2: "We did?"

Twiddletwit 1: "Did what?"

Twiddletwit 2: "Who are you? Maybe we should build a nest."

Twiddletwit 1: "Oh, good idea! And then we could lay eggs!"

Twiddletwit 2: "Eggs? Hey! We could lay eggs! Whichever one of us is the female could have eggs!"

Twiddletwit 1: "Yay!"

Twiddletwit 2: "What do we need in order to lay some eggs?"

Twiddletwit 1: "A nest!"

Twiddletwit 2: "Hey! Look! Look! This looks like a good place to put a nest!"

Twiddletwit 1: "Yay! Nest! Eggs!"

...and Twiddletwit 2 and Twiddletwit 1 wobbled off, only to return half a second later with brand new twigs, which they placed lovingly on the exact same spot their old nest had been.

Heisenberg was entertained. I was infuriated. Some long-suppressed passion for common sense exploded out of the restraints placed on it when I started working on the Island. It may be unreasonable to expect mourning doves -- whose skulls are the size of quarters, and therefore could hardly encompass brains larger than, say, dimes -- to think logically. It's possible I was anthropomorphizing and irrationally punishing them for failing to live up to my image of the Aristotelean uber-pigeon. I threw open the sliding glass door and marched outside.

Startled by my presence, the doves clutched their twigs in their beaks and flew clumsily away. I was left behind on the balcony, cursing at the mess of twigs and smashed eggs now soiling my slippers.

It couldn't be allowed to go on. Thinking I had dissuaded them from the notion of rebuilding, I went back inside, only to charge out again a few minutes later when the mourning doves returned, encouraged by my seeming defeat. It was obvious by that point that they would not be stymied by the feeble obstacles of gravity and concrete. No. They would carry on, in the noblest traditions of other really stupid prey animals with rapidly diminishing (gee-I-wonder-why) populations.

I rummaged about in the Guy's office and found a shallow, square box that would offer some support for an actual nest, enough to prevent the contents and building material from plummeting to their doom. Out on the balcony, the doves were once more attempting to rebuild, painstakingly planting twig after twig on the ladder, only to be puzzled when they returned with the next twig and found the first twig missing. I stormed out again. They flew off to a safe distance while I tied the box to one side of the ladder with a piece of ribbon. You can see it in the photograph, perched on top of the ladder. I tested its stability. I swore at the mess.

I went back inside, took up my post, and waited.

A minute later, the doves were back. They discovered the box. Their little dovey faces registered surprise. What ho! There's a new thing here. Where're our twigs? Heeeeeeeere, twigs!

Twiddletwit 1 jumped into the box. Twiddletwit 2 jumped on top of Twiddletwit 1. They wiggled. Twiddletwit 2 jumped out. Twiddletwit 1 jumped out. Twiddletwit 1 jumped in. Twiddletwit 1 jumped out. Twiddletwit 1 jumped in. Twiddletwit 2 flew away.

Twiddletwit 1 jumped out. Twiddletwit 1 flew away. Twiddletwit 2 flew back with a twig. Which he placed, very carefully, on the OTHER SIDE OF THE LADDER.

And then he jumped into the box, wiggled a little, and flew away. Just in time for his twig to slide slowly off the ladder, and for Twiddletwit 1 to fly back with her own little twig, which she also planted lovingly on the other side of the ladder, right where the last twig had been.

Enough was enough. I left for Tara's house.

When I saw them last, Twiddletwit 1 and Twiddletwit 2 were still taking turns playing very bad jenga with their twigs, all freshly imported, and jumping in and out of the box. "Fine," I told them. "Whatever. Do whatever. See if I care."

Twiddletwit 1 and Twiddletwit 2 were perfectly content.

Twiddletwit 1: "Look, I'm in. Look, I'm out! Look, I'm in again. Where's my twig?"

Twiddletwit 2: "I'm out. I'm in. Out! Wish it were on the other side of the tree so we could build our nest here. Look, I'm in!"