Not so long ago, I wrote a post about how totally awesome it is to see birds indoors. I am now retracting that sentiment (under certain circumstances).

I went into work one morning last week and one of my coworkers came up to me and said, “I hear you’ve got pigeons.” Evidently, early that morning someone had been working in the lab where I was building my latest laser and a pigeon swooped down out of the drop ceiling, circled the lab a few times, and escaped back up into the ceiling. What the hell!

It seems that the creature somehow worked its way into the building through a gap in one of the outdoor light fixtures and had been wandering around above our ceilings for some time. It found a missing ceiling tile in my lab and decided to check things out. I found all of this rather amusing until I went into my lab and discovered the following.

It seems that on its sojourn through the lab, the pigeon decided to shatter my pair of laser goggles. Or should I say he shattered my NEW pair of laser goggles that I depend on to protect my fragile eyeballs from certain laser-induced catastrophe! So now, as they say, it is on.

I went back to business as usual until later that afternoon when I heard the sound that meant my revenge was imminent; a little flutter from the other side of the partition in the lab. I stuck my head around the corner and found myself inches away from a mad-flapping beast. At this point, some of the details of the events vary. Some claim that, after being nearly slapped in the face by an errant wing, I let out something of a scream or a yelp. HOWEVER, my story is that, when faced with my nemesis, I unleashed a thundering war cry that sent it scurrying in fear.

I plugged the hole in the ceiling, called in some help, and we chased the thing around the lab for a while until it got tired and crashed into a wall. The pigeon fell down behind some stuff and got pinned against the wall. We just reached down with a bag, grabbed it, and carried it outside. When the bird was released, he flew around in a big circle and landed right back on the building to let the cycle of adventure begin anew.

KM Lasers: Now with more Pigeon!