A couple of weeks ago, I was having a dinner with some co-workers and I made a reference to the place I grew up: El Cerrito, California.
Co-worker: El Cerrito? As in, El Cerrito High?
Ernie: Yeah. Class of 1994.
Co-worker: Whoa! Class of 1996! I don’t think we knew each other back then.
Ernie: Nope. Well, you don’t remember “the seagull guy,” right? That was me.
Co-worker: The seagull who? No.
Ernie: Cool. So anyway, I…
Co-worker: Wait. I do remember. I’ve heard stories about you.
1994. It’s kinda hard to believe that I graduated from high school ten years ago. Like, remember the episodes of Saved By the Bell where everyone talks about how their ten year reunions? Then, in a dramatic fantasy sequence, there they are, the same 17 year olds wearing “old clothes” and fake mustaches, talking about their fantasy jobs and their imaginary children.
And then one of them took all her clothes off to star in the movie Showgirls. But I digress.
So there I am in my salad bowl haircut. It’s not enough that I have the salad bowl haircut, of course. I also have a green baseball jacket that my mother brought back from Taiwan. Soft inside liner, protected me from the wind, my favorite jacket. And instead of a team logo, it had in giant lettering: “1993.”
Do you know uncool it is to wear a 1993 jacket in 1994?
But there I am anyway, green jacket and bad haircut and I’m sitting on the baseball field at lunch with some classmates. They weren’t necessarily friends - they would start talking shit the second I walked away, talked openly about poker nights and weekend hangouts that I wasn’t invited to - but they tolerated me having lunch around them.
I had a crush on one of the guys in the group, Scott. (The name “Scott” has been changed, of course, to protect the innocent. And for high school alumni armed with a search engine.) Scott and I were in a bunch of classes together. He wasn’t necessarily hot or anything; it was more of the simple fact that he didn’t make fun of me as much as the other guys. That and he lived within a 10 minute drive from me, since it took half an hour to get to school each day. He was funny, too. How do you get a closested high school boy to like you? Be nice to him, that’s how. And I liked him.
(passes in the halls)
Ernie: Hey. Happy Birthday.
Scott: Thanks, man. I don’t think I ever told you it was my birthday today.
Ernie: Yeah, you did. A couple months back.
Scott: Cool. You’re the only one who remembered.
Ernie: Oh yeah? No problem.
(looks down, walks away)
You’re probably wondering why I bring up the story of an awkward crush I had in high school. Why? Because they was there when it happened. “They” being him, sitting across from me, and 10 of his closest friends. “It” being, of course, a group of 50 to 100 seagulls. Seagulls in the Bay Area are common place - rats with wings, flying from the marinas to baseball-diamond sized fields of pizza crusts and candy wrappers, free to take a shit wherever they want.
Yep, you guessed it. A seagull shit on my head. Directly on my head, running down on my forehead, starting to go between my eyebrows before I took the paper bag that my dad used to hold sandwiches from the meat leftover from dinner and wiped it across my salad-bowl accented forehead. Everyone is laughing. The seagulls, the people eating lunch, the stoners getting high by the bleachers, the cholos hanging by the gym.
And Scott. He was laughing too. At me, not with me.
Fuck. It’s brown. Isn’t seagull shit supposed to be white? Fuck.
It’s night now, and I’m supposed to be doing my calculus homework but I’ve been in the shower for an hour, washing my hair for the fifth time, convinced that I haven’t gotten all the birdshit out of my hair. I’m convinced that my dad thinks I’m masturbating. I convince myself, for a brief second, that no one will remember this at school the next day.
Hooray for idealism!
It became legend. Of course it became legend. People drew pictures of seagulls on my binder, wrote catty remarks in yearbooks, made seagull noises as I walked across the stage for graduation practice. “I’m going to get the fuck away from here,” I thought to myself. “I’m going to move to Boston and go to college there and I’ll change and I’ll never have to talk to these motherfuckers again in my entire life.”
And what happens? I date someone from my high school. One year anniversary last Thursday.
The faster you run, the more likely it catches up to you.
40 responses so far ↓
ronn // Dec 9, 2003 at 2:57 am
Don’t run Ernie. Just be glad you’ve done some amazing things in a relatively short time and have so much more to do.
Hooray for optimism.
Matt // Dec 9, 2003 at 3:10 am
It doesn’t matter if you run, seagulls can fly.
Louise // Dec 9, 2003 at 5:10 am
Seagulls! Rats of the sky! God, I hate ‘em, and they haunt me, too. I teach at a school, right by the ocean, and third-graders always throw their half-eaten sandwiches on the ground to tempt the damn birds. Three of my students got shit upon in one day this year. Hasn’t curbed the littering, though.
Camilo // Dec 9, 2003 at 6:46 am
Seagulls are not that good as food, either.
But it was you that brought the seagull subject up, wasn’t it?
As Hitchcock would say, you can’t hide.
Vincent // Dec 9, 2003 at 6:51 am
I don’t know if this phenomina happens other places, but in the warm months here there are always thousands of seagulls around the parking lots of Wal-Marts. Why is that?
karsh // Dec 9, 2003 at 7:36 am
If it’s any consolation, a bird once shitted in my monster ‘fro five years ago. Of course, my hair was so big that I didn’t notice it (or smell it, for that matter) until two days later. Thank God I was alone when I did.
The Mighty Jimbo // Dec 9, 2003 at 7:42 am
oh man.
ernie. high school is traumatizing enough. being gay, uncool AND getting shit on by seagulls?
i thought being an 82 pund freshman was bad.
The Mighty Jimbo // Dec 9, 2003 at 7:43 am
i remember when i showed up as a freshman they played us this film (that dates me for sure) called “the best time in your life.”
as of yet, i haven’t met anyone in the world who would agree with that statement. and if they did, man, that was hell of a downward trajectory.
aj // Dec 9, 2003 at 7:56 am
dood. me too. when i was in 8th grade i was one of the “cool” ones. then i went to high school where i was just a freshman.
it was morning break and i was eating nachos, and as i put a nacho up in front of me to take a bite a bird shit right on my nacho… even got some on my fingers.
i calmly threw my food away and went to the bathroom. i’d like to think noone saw, but i’m sure someone did.
don’t worry about it… those that made fun of us are probably working at jiffy lube right now… a thought that makes me smile.
:: jozjozjoz :: // Dec 9, 2003 at 8:12 am
Happy 1 year, by the way.
Ariel // Dec 9, 2003 at 9:42 am
Jimbo, there ARE some people who hold high school as the best years of their lives. Take, for example, the guy in my class who was ASB president, homecoming king, captain of the football team, etc. He completed an accellerated teaching certification and was back at our high school teaching algebra by the time he was 23. Still there, too! Totally loving it.
That’s certainly not MY life, but hey: it clearly works for him.
Romy // Dec 9, 2003 at 10:26 am
I’m so lucky to have been homeschooled. Any time something like this happened to me (and believe me, I dealt with bird shit and animal bites and bug attacks and mud puddles and everything), there were no other teenagers around to tease me about it.
Happy one year anniversary, man. And stay away from seagulls.
stacia // Dec 9, 2003 at 11:04 am
heh
aaron // Dec 9, 2003 at 11:08 am
beautiful. thank you.
and happy anniversary. you deserve it.
aaron // Dec 9, 2003 at 11:09 am
beautiful. thank you.
and happy anniversary.
Donny O // Dec 9, 2003 at 11:59 am
UC Davis wasn’t quite Boston was it?
Casey // Dec 9, 2003 at 1:02 pm
At our high school in San Jose, it was far too common to be shit on by the seagulls for there to be any stigma attached to it. At least when it happened to me, it was neatly contained on the inside of the right lens of my glasses. Ew.
Happy anniversary to you both.
Mary // Dec 9, 2003 at 1:08 pm
Not only have I been shit on by seagulls at my own Bay Area school [as we all were] - I was attacked by one at the SF Zoo last year. The seagulls there are like fucking velociraptors - way more intelligent than the average bird, stalking the food areas and growing five sizes larger than they should. I was just about to eat the last bite [aka the BEST bite] of my overpriced Churro when an enormous seagul swooped down, smacked me in the shoulder and ATE MY CHURRO. It’s not as humiliating as being Seagull Boy, but it’s probably cost more in therapy.
Seagulls. *shudder*
Christine // Dec 9, 2003 at 1:13 pm
Hey there. You are beautiful. I knew you then and never laughed AT you. You were way too witty and always making me laugh…in the good way. Still love you Ernie! Happy Anniversary!
lotus // Dec 9, 2003 at 3:18 pm
When I first read this, I thought it said “flock of seagulls guy.” My first thought was that maybe you had long floopy hair in high school…
PatCH // Dec 9, 2003 at 5:00 pm
Whoa! It’s been a year already? Happy anniversary, kids!
Ryan Little // Dec 9, 2003 at 5:25 pm
i too had a bird shit on my head. i was in 8th grade though. the first kid that laughed i popped in the jaw, then nobody laughed. See Ernie, violence solves problems.
Ryan Little // Dec 9, 2003 at 5:25 pm
i too had a bird shit on my head. i was in 8th grade though. the first kid that laughed i popped in the jaw, then nobody laughed. See Ernie, violence solves problems.
Jessica // Dec 9, 2003 at 5:53 pm
Happy Anniversary!
You guys are the cutest couple. It makes my heart smile, when I see your happy selves together.
I too share the Seagull Shame.
I was walking down Fillmore, near Pine, after work one summer evening (it was still light out. way light.), going to meet some cute boy for drinks in the Haight. I had just passed under the awning of this restaurant when I felt something hit the top of my head, hard. I thought it was kids in the apartments upstairs, throwing rocks at pedestrians, but no: it was much worse than that.
I had this huge purse, which you’d think might have held an entire box of Kleenex and perhaps a roll of paper towels, but all I could find to wipe my forehead with was a pair of really nice black leather gloves. I ducked into the next vacant doorway, and got ot work. The gloves were a disgusting mess; I threw them away in the garbage can on the corner.
Even though I got to it fast, and left not one trace of the putrid crap visible, I still smelled like something worse than death. I blew off my drinks date and went instead to the BART station and washed my hair in the sink.
When I was in junior high, this one hyperactive kid used to feed the seagulls Alka-Seltzer tablets; the theory was that they’d explode and die, since they can’t release gas. I never saw it happen, but it was a nice thing to think about, on my ride home.
eunae // Dec 9, 2003 at 6:12 pm
they all remember you because of that? eh. scott = evil.
Bill // Dec 9, 2003 at 6:43 pm
My god. Has it been a year already? The days, they are a’flying.
Happy anniversary. I can think of no one who deserves such happiness more than you.
Incidentally, my partner and I visited San Francisco over Thanksgiving and had a fantabulous time. Please thank everyone in the Bay Area for us.
kitta // Dec 9, 2003 at 8:52 pm
There was a mob of seagulls like that at my high school, but everyone thought it was lucky if one of them happened to shit on you. Thankfully, I never got the chance to feel this luck.
jessebeller // Dec 9, 2003 at 11:42 pm
yes, here in new york we have seagulls, too.
yes, ive been shat upon twice in the course of the past year.
Yoshi! // Dec 10, 2003 at 12:11 am
ernie, we’ve never been properly introduced, but jozjozjoz is my girlfriend. anyway, you are SO not alone in the seagull shit department.
when i was in junior high, i too was shat on by a rat with wings during lunch. not only was i laughed at by all of my ‘friends’ but they all got up and ran away, as if by staying they ran the risk of being infected by the gooey mass that had landed with startling accuracy on the top of my head.
isn’t it so nice to have these memories of adolescence? and nice, too, that these are the only things that some people will ever remember about you?
now i have to shower cuz i feel dirty.
dm // Dec 10, 2003 at 5:40 am
happy 1st anniversary…love your blog.
Lauren // Dec 10, 2003 at 6:56 am
happy anniversary, babe! i love love… it’s so lovely…
myrall // Dec 10, 2003 at 10:35 am
anniversaries are great and gushy. congrats on your year.
James // Dec 10, 2003 at 4:11 pm
congratulations on your anniversary!!!!
Stephanie // Dec 11, 2003 at 9:34 pm
I don’t see why people are so immature. A seagull took a shit on me once, too. Granted, I was only 6 years old and I was on the beach with my family. But still.
Friggin’ high school sonsofbitches.
Congratulations, also!
Being in love is wonderful.
Sean // Dec 13, 2003 at 9:49 am
SEAGULS SUCK!! IF ONE EVER TRIED TO SHIT ON ME, I’D BOOT IT ACROSS THE FIELD!!! EITHER THAT OR KICK IT REALLY HARD IN THE BALLS!!!
I Do It All The Fuckin Time // Dec 13, 2003 at 1:23 pm
being a seagull is ok, being shit on by a seagull is ok. being shit is not ok, but if you were shit, then you wouldn’t know you were not ok. not knowing that you’re not knowing is not ok.
fuckin high school sumbitches.
Lee // Dec 14, 2003 at 1:45 am
Well, I share a similar story…not a seagull but some bird (never got to i.d. it) in London’s Trafalger Square. Was passing under a tree and *splat* right on top of my head. And just before heading to a West End play. Imagine the odd looks I was getting in the theatre’s men’s bathroom with my head under the faucet and hair full of suds.
That being confessed….happy anniversary!
caferin // Dec 18, 2003 at 5:04 pm
Walking to school on “class picture day” in the 6th grade…. SPLAT! Right on my shoulder. My shirt was ruined… even the teacher laughed.
Did I mention I was a fat kid too… ugh
bobo // Dec 21, 2003 at 11:17 am
seagulls have a pact with satan!we should start a campaign to empathise with and help the poor peole who are victims of their target practice! hurry for those of us who are shat on , may we all live long and be joyful!
p.s i found your site when i googled “hello kitty” and it produced a pix of sum1 with a hello kitty tattoo!cool!
gwen // Apr 1, 2004 at 12:54 pm
my mom went to el cerrito high. class of…get ready…1949. she’s passed away, but i wear her high school class ring.
anyway, yeah: seagulls are flying rats.
but lordy, do i miss them now that i live in the black hole called las vegas.
thanks for a great post.
you got me laughing so hard, and crying too.
Leave a Comment