My walk to the subway takes me behind a local grocery store. Every day someone, a person I have never seen in over 7 years, puts food out on the sidewalk for the pigeons. Usually it consists of stale bread, sometimes rice, occasionally something like old Chinese food. Often I have to pass directly through the hordes of pigeons as I pass. This anonymous donor obviously has good intentions even if it does mean the sidewalk is not often the equivalent of an Irish "tidy town".
A few days ago I passed and alongside the rice someone had put out mussels. Now, mussels are pretty pricey here in NYC and not exactly what I normally consider pigeon food. Maybe someone was trying to make points with the few stray seagulls that loiter near the parking lot. In any event, it seemed and odd choice to me, one of those random NYC oddities that grabs your attention.
A few hours later I returned and those mussels were picked clean. Amazing. Pigeons. Call them what you will: rats with wings, flying cockroaches. Above all, they are survivors, opportunists. And you know what? So are most actors. Pigeons and actors. We both find ways to manage and hang on despite significant odds. In fact, actors are famous for eating anything that's free. Now, I've never seen one eating off of that sidewalk, but I did recently eat some of that calamari with the tentacles, something that anyone who knows me was unlikely to happen. Why? It was free.
I have a new perspective on pigeons. A kinship. I'm still not putting food on that sidewalk, though. It's disgusting.
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