If I Had A Nickel

This was a lot funnier than it looks -- it needs sound.

These two were perched on the roof of the courthouse by where I was parked at work. The juvenile was making a sound akin to the one all human mothers have heard at one time or another --the endless repetitive, monotonous, mind-numbing, "mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom" rapidly increasing in volume and intensity.

The gull version was more like a "squee.....squee" sound, but I'm sure it means the same thing. The human version usually occurs when mom's on the phone or in a store trying to conduct business and is almost always accompanied by a rhythmic tug on a skirt or finger taping on an arm. It's clearly a demand for attention and I never been able to figure out how to stop it in a fashion that wouldn't involve blood or the law. I do, however, remember saying that if I had a nickel for every time my kids did it, I'd be a rich woman.

Mama gull, or perhaps papa, didn't seem at all bothered by it, but the kid was so insistent that I probably should have stayed around long enough to make sure mom/dad didn't take a deliberate nose dive off the roof to end it all.