As soon as I answered a call from Kindra last week, my phone turned off and gave me a message that said, paraphrased: “The battery in your iPhone is nearly kaput. Better think about getting a new phone.”
Great. My mobile is an iPhone 8 and only five years old, so it’s not nearly time for me to buy a new one, especially since I have driven a lot of cars that didn’t cost as much as a new phone.
Fortunately, Kindra mentioned a place in Shawnee that installs new batteries in old phones, so off I went on Friday morning.
Yes, they could install a battery and bring yonder phone back to life, the guy said. It would cost less than $100 and would take about an hour.
I paid him and thought: I’ll just go back home, drink coffee and work on my laptop while he’s installing the battery. So I did.
As I working at the desk in the bedroom, I heard something flutter behind me and felt a light breeze on my neck.
How disconcerting. A couple of seconds later, I saw something brown and small land on the case where I keep my cameras.
It was a wren, obviously disconcerted and none too happy about J.R. the cat crouching a couple of feet below him (or her) on the corner of the desk.
Martin heard the bird from the living room and came to see what was up. Being half-bird dog, he felt personally invested.
This seemed like a disaster in the making, with the bird eager to get out of the house, J.R. eager to have the bird for lunch and Martin just eager in general.
So I summoned Aaliyah and the four of us trapped the bird in the bathroom near the window.
I gently caught it in a towel, Aaliyah kept J.R. and Martin in the bedroom and I let the bird loose outside.
It flew like a shot arrow for the woods and probably didn’t stop until it got to Seminole.
The last couple of years, a wren hen whom we call Wren-Tin-Tin, has built a nest on the front porch. I suspect the bird in question was either Wren-Tin-Tin or one of her offspring.
By the time the wren was out of the house, my phone was ready. I bought a sleek new protective case for it and felt like I was walking out with a new phone.
My first text was to Kindra, who said Aaliyah had already mentioned the bird.
“How did it get in?” Kindra asked. Best I can figure, it flew into the garage and was trapped when the garage door closed behind it. Someone later opened the door from the garage to the kitchen and the bird, sensing escape, flew in without being noticed. Except perhaps by the cats.
I figure everything worked out for the best - the situation with the phone battery let me come home for a while and spring the bird before it had a chance to leave its calling cards around the house and before J.R. knocked over any furniture trying to catch it.