There’s a story behind those boxes of birdseed at your local pet store. Someone with a deft hand mixed different seeds into a curated blend designed to satisfy a bird’s deepest culinary desires.
That someone was me.
Looking for a summer job during high school, I spotted a “Help Wanted” sign on a pet shop window. After a short interview with the owner, we had an even shorter conversation about my duties.
I was to stay away from tropical fish, puppies, guppies, cats, rats and customers. After that, I could scarcely wait to hear what my duties might be. The answer came quickly.
I was to make birdseed for parakeets, canaries and finches. Kind of like a celebrity chef,
I thought, only without the toque.
This process began by opening a bunch of flattened boxes, rubber cementing the bottoms, waiting for them to dry and then filling them. Then I was to empty large sacks of seeds into a huge galvanized garbage can, mix them with an industrial-size scoop and fill the boxes. How simple was that?
All this was to be done in the dark recesses at the back of the store. What I wasn’t told, however, was that the owners’ son, David, would be constantly watching me from different corners of this gloomy area. David was a young man of limited capabilities and wore his Cubs cap sideways. He wasn’t especially social, so we settled into a nodding relationship. That was fine with me as I was there to make birdseed, not friends. But I did keep an eye peeled for him, as he had a penchant for suddenly appearing out of nowhere and making my hair stand on end.
Birdseed making turned out to be an unfortunate career choice, however, as I’m allergic to anything with fur, feathers and probably fins. Grasses are another big no-no. Hay fever comes on me like a South Seas tsunami. Once, an allergy doctor’s injections of allergens transformed my skin into a Himalayan topographical map, complete with surrounding foothills, a nearby village and a lagoon.
On my very first day, I knew I was doomed when I poured large sacks of millet, cracked corn, milo and sesame seed into the garbage can. Then, with scoop in hand, began mixing. A cloud of dust rose from the can and enveloped me in a vortex of wheezes and sneezes. And the more I scooped, the more the dust arose.
Once that task was completed, I scooped the seed into the empty boxes. That activity created dust clouds of a smaller magnitude, but there were dozens of them, each hovering above a box. When the boxes were filled, they needed to be sealed. During that process, the rubber cement brush quickly gathered enough birdseed to feed a family of finches and possibly a dozen canaries.
I didn’t last more than a week. And though I’ve had plenty of other jobs since then, this one was not for me.
It was for the birds.
James began his writing career as a copywriter for the Montgomery Ward Farm and Garden Catalog. This gig taught him how to distill all the pertinent features and benefits of a tractor, tiller or mower into 12 lines of 36 characters, including “Easy to Assemble.”