These crazy people and their birds:

I had two amusing phone calls today, despite only being in the office till 2:00.

One, whom we have been referring to as 'Bird shit lady,' called and left a message on our machine. It ran something like this: 'Hi, my name is __. I'm not calling about a dead bird. Our block has been overtaken by birds. They are everywhere and they're really annoying and their shit is all over the place. You're the third person I've called. I need someone to take care of this.' She then left a phone number in the city of Chicago. You know, just because we pick up a few dead birds doesn't mean that we should be the default number for all your bird-related needs. I'm just saying.

The second guy I actually talked to. He gave his name and said that he worked for one of the villages in Cook County and that he had a crow for us. After verifying that it met our criteria, I told him we would have someone out to pick it up. He said "If I'm out doing inspections or whatever, it's in the break room freezer." I said, "OK, so the receptionist or whoever will know where it is." He, "Um, well I didn't want to tell everyone it was in there. I figured they didn't want to know." I replied, "OK," while thinking "so you put this in the break room where everyone at the office puts their lunches. No wonder you didn't want to tell them."

Other than that, today at work was very unsatisfying. I spent the morning testing mosquitos and helping one of my coworkers with some computer stuff. Then my boss gave me a bunch of data-entry stuff that I wasn't expecting to have to do, so I didn't even get started on writing up any violations until after 11 and didn't finish till almost 2, especially since the phone rang a bunch and I kept having to run outside to put more money in the meter since it took much longer than I was planning. I got about 35 letters written up, though I used the wrong form letter for close to 15 tire piles and I didn't feel like fixing it. Probably my boss won't notice, and really it doesn't matter, but I really hope I don't have to redo them.