I'm getting e-mails from bird lovers and experts responding to my message of earlier this morning about how the crows in my neighborhood are getting frighteningly large. Several folks want to know if maybe these are ravens, instead.
No, they are crows. Huge crows. Crows of awesome, worrisome height and girth. Crows that if they get much larger will be able to grab up a full-sized man in their beaks and snap him in two like a Rold-Gold pretzel stick. Crows that could crush the roof of your car if they were to merely alight on it. I don't even want to think about what might happen if you parked under a crow that big. One good dump and they'd have to send in St. Bernards to find you.
And every time I see the crows, they're bigger than they were the last time I saw them. Soon, they will be the size of Graf Zeppelins and then, by God, maybe you people will listen to me.
I am not a paranoid person. I don't spend much time worrying about natural disasters or the economy or terrorism or even the adminstration of George W. Bush, who's making all those things worse by the moment. I rarely imagine doom lies ahead. Just look at some of the jobs I've taken voluntarily when a more apprehensive man might have imagined what could happen.
But I tell you: I'm deeply, deeply worried about the crows. And also by the fact that people love Dancing With the Stars. Somehow, that threatens our well-being, too.