Scavenger Hunt

Not too long ago we found a dead vulture near our driveway. My daughter, who scientifically and detachedly observes her pet bearded dragon (Zilla) catch and eat live crickets, and our pet corn snake (Tuna) eat frozen but still cute and furry young mice, decided to have a soft spot for the thing and ran inside the house to get a fake flower purchased at Dollar Tree to lay over it as a memorial. She does this for lots of dead things she finds. The picture accompanying this post is of one of her gravesites. I’ll let her future therapist sort out what all that means.

Vultures are hideously ugly animals, and what they do all day is kinda gross, but I do appreciate the service they provide for the world. But for vultures, there would be dead animal carcasses all over the place. They are the crematoriums of the animal kingdom, the sanitation engineers, if you will. Sorta like the guys who pump out septic tanks. I wouldn’t want to do that, but I sure am glad that there are people who are willing. 

So this got me to thinking. When a vulture is dead on the side of the road, do other vultures eat it, or is there some kind of vulture cannibalism taboo in the vulture community? Which spun my brain in a completely different direction. In a flash, I got an image of the incident from the perspective of the vulture who found the one by my driveway. This made me giggle. Which was really kind of embarrassing, because I was in the middle of the bicep track in BodyPump at BodyPlex, and there is nothing funny at all about three minutes and twenty-three seconds of uninterrupted choreographed curls set to Pink’s “Raise Your Glass.” 

Here is what went through my brain. If you can, try to hear it in your head being read by the guy who does all those movie trailers, or maybe Samuel L. Jackson:

The vulture, smelling the sweet aroma of death and decay, swoops down to take his morning meal. When he lands, he is immediately struck by what he sees. "Phil?" He says. "Is that you?" He pokes Phil's carcass with his beak, confirming that Phil is, in fact, no more and has travelled on to the Great Compost Heap. He gets a little shudder. This is the first time he has been the Discoverer, and he wants to get it right. He looks up reverently into the sky. "Phil, I am honored to take your spirit and your energy within me so that you may live on." And he proceeds to eat.

While he is eating, he is humbled by the scores of possums and squirrels and rabbits who gave their lives to nourish Phil, so Phil could in turn nourish him. He feels Phil’s blood and energy coursing through his veins as he offers up a squawked prayer that he will live up to the memory of the vulture that was Phil. He knows that taking on Phil’s body allows him to take Phil’s role in the flock. He wonders if this entitles him to privileges with Phil's wife.

Truth be told, I don’t actually know what happened to Phil. All I know is that he isn’t by the side of my driveway any longer, and that plastic flower still is. Rest in Peace, Phil.

Note: this blog was inspired by a conversation with the fabulous Carole Townsend, author of Southern Fried White Trash and Red Lipstick and Clean Underwear, which you can buy in bulk from her website or www.amazon.com or www.barnesandnoble.com