Many years ago, my brother-in-law was working a high school summer job that involved … oh, I don’t even know what it was. Something like landscaping, I guess. His crew had stopped for lunch near a school sports field in order to ogle a girls’ soccer practice, and my brother-in-law — let’s just refer to him by his name, which is Joe — saw that a seagull was trying to steal his sandwich. With the intent of scaring it away, Joe picked up a screwdriver and threw it, but some horrible twist of fate sent the tool flying end over end and plunging directly into the bird’s back. Like, impaling the damn thing. So here’s this seagull with a screwdriver gruesomely embedded into its flesh, staggering around with its wings splayed out, and Joe figures it’s going to die and better to end its life quickly before it tries to fly off with a fatal wound. So he picks it up by the head and starts swinging the body around and around in order to break its neck. That’s the point where Joe looks up and notices, for the first time, that all the girls are staring at him — a freaky-looking hunched-over guy who’s got a death grip on a seagull and is whipping it around in a circle, and it looks like he gouged it with a screwdriver first, what the fuck — with open-mouthed horror. As Joe carries on, feeling caught in a nightmare, some of the girls start crying.

I have no idea what happened after that. I’m only telling you this because you know how the trend with blogs lately is to have a super meaningful conclusion to a random story? Like my kids melted down at Target but that’s okay because parenthood is like a box of beautiful chocolates lying in the sun or whatever? Don’t you kinda miss when people just wrote about whatever, and there didn’t need to be a nice tidy ending?

ow fuck ow

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kathleenicanrah
kathleenicanrah
9 years ago

AMAZING. poor joe (poor bird). made me think of this, which is a favorite in our household http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzmAEQzZJ5Q

m @ random musings
9 years ago

hahaha. what an awesome story.

JudithNYC
JudithNYC
9 years ago

I had a miserable, miserable day today. I am so glad you posted this story. I laughed so hard imagining poor Joe and the girls. And then I truly lost all control with the video the first commenter posted. Thank you.

Ali303
9 years ago

Holy crap–I was full on belly-laughing from the story and the picture. Then I hovered over the pic, saw the description and I completely lost it!

Sharon
Sharon
9 years ago

Good story. Thanks for sharing a real life story. Story endings are seldom tidy in the real world.

sooboo
sooboo
9 years ago

I’m cringe laughing reading this! Man, poor everyone/thing involved in that story. It was like life though: some stuff happens, some good, some bad, (mostly bad in this story) the end.

Kristin C.
Kristin C.
9 years ago

Ahahaaaaaa!!! Just woke my husband with my laughter. That’s an awesome story.

Andrea
Andrea
9 years ago

OMG. I love you.

JoAnna
JoAnna
9 years ago

Hahahahhahahahaha!

April
April
9 years ago

My husband and I just laughed so hard that we cried.

Claire
9 years ago

I DO miss that; sometimes I start a post thinking it’s going to end all neat and tidy and it doesn’t. And I have to be ok with that. So thank you for this.

Aileen
Aileen
9 years ago

Oh come on!!! It’s not a real blog post without all the kittens, and butterflies, and softly lit pictures of butter.

Doesn’t it end with Joe pulling the screwdriver out of seagull, doing emergency surgery with the screwdriver, a plastic fork, and a granola bar wrapper? And the bird lives, and is now a valued and loving member of his family. ?

Kristen
Kristen
9 years ago

I love you Linda. That was fantastic!

Angella
9 years ago

Best. Don’t ever stop blogging, Linda. xo

jen
jen
9 years ago

This is why you are awesome. Love it.

Jo
Jo
9 years ago

HA HA HA !

Amber
9 years ago

“And as I swung that seagull around by the neck, the soft sun shining down on all of us, its squawks of pain and distress filling the air, I realized something. Those girls, even in all their horror, were seeing the majesty and the grand tragedy of life all at once. Because sometimes that’s life, isn’t it? We make choices, even simple ones like throwing a screwdriver at a seagull, and those choices can go awry. Just like parenting. Just like life. We were all connected in that moment, in the warm summer sun. I can only hope they understood it as I did, all these years later.”

Carmen
9 years ago

Best story ever. I have no need for a tidy wrap-up to a random story, if the random story is always as good as this one is.

Jan Ross
9 years ago

I am totally fine with impaling/breaking the neck of any seagull. Those freakin’ things make it just about impossible to eat on the beach. And I’d like to kick the people who encourage them to eat by feeding them on the beach. We were swarmed by the little buggers who rushed over in Siesta Key when we just OPENED THE COOLER to get a drink. They had been trained by the other tourists that opening cooler = food.

dorrie
dorrie
9 years ago

LOLS best blog entry in forever

Laura Broder
Laura Broder
9 years ago

This is amazing and made my day.

Claire
Claire
9 years ago

Agreed. Not naming names cause that’s not cool but there’s a couple of blogs I used to love that have gone so sickly and schmaltzy and wannabe meaningful they make me want to vom.

These blogs used to be piss funny and random. Now they are self conscious and borign as fuck. So yeah, like the seagull story. Like your blog too BTW, read for years.x

Claire
Claire
9 years ago

Agreed. Not naming names cause that’s not cool but there’s a couple of blogs I used to love that have gone so sickly and schmaltzy and wannabe meaningful they make me want to vom.

These blogs used to be piss funny and random. Now they are self conscious and boring as fuck. So yeah,I like the seagull story. I Like your blog too BTW, read for years.x

Shawna
9 years ago

Is that… is that a real photo? Or photoshopped? Because it is the awesome!

Em
Em
9 years ago

Crying. That is one if the funniest stories I’ve ever heard. And it definitely doesn’t need to be tied up in a pretty bow.

Faith
Faith
9 years ago

Do you think this event had anything to do with why he’s now a mortician? Cause that would be pretty funny.

Kristin
Kristin
9 years ago

Too funny…!

Morgan
Morgan
9 years ago

Ha! You’re the best.

alexa
alexa
9 years ago

oh my god. Best story ever! I’m laughing my guts out.

Tia
Tia
9 years ago

That’s the best story I’ve read all month. Thanks for the smile.

Sara
Sara
9 years ago

Best. Entry. Ever.

Christina
Christina
9 years ago

I have (had) a sleeping baby in my arms. I could not help but laugh out loud quietly, which made my chest spasm more. Could not stop laughing. Worth it.

lola
lola
9 years ago

:) Laughing at story…then at Amber’s Tidy Finish. lol.

Melissa A.
Melissa A.
9 years ago

If this happened today, it would be caught on video, posted on YouTube, go viral and completely ruin his life as he is arrested and labeled an animal killer.

H
H
9 years ago

Thank you for this! I love it.

Andrea
9 years ago

You made my Thursday. Tears rolling down my face.

Lori
Lori
9 years ago

The best story I’ve read in awhile.

Gretchen in HB
Gretchen in HB
9 years ago

I think I’d like to marry Amber, please, if she is single.

I HATE THE FAKE FLUFFY ATTEMPTS TO BE DEEP AND MEANINGFUL AND SHARE STORIES AND EMBRACE EVERYTHING!

Dude! Sometimes a melted crayon on the dashboard isn’t a metaphor for life and sunlight and unicorns, it’s just a big damn pain in the ass to clean up!

Poor Joe, he must’ve wished Mother Earth would open up and swallow him whole.

Leah, agirlandaboy (@agirlandaboy)

Long live Linda, queen of blogging forever and ever.

Christine
Christine
9 years ago

Never leave us, Linda. Okay?

Danell
Danell
9 years ago

I can’t stop looking at that picture. Mesmerizing.

Karen
9 years ago

I don’t know about blog posts with tidy endings, but this was awesome.

meslek kursu ankara
9 years ago

awsome photos…

mmoxx
9 years ago

I can’t stop looking at that picture.

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