text: Whenever a bird poops on your car, it’s annoying. If it’s on your windshield, a little fluid and a couple scrubs from your wipers will clear it off. Anywhere else on the car and you either have to wash it off yourself, wait for rain or take it through a car wash. It’s a minor inconvenience at worst. But what if the bird poop literally buried your car like a snow storm. You can’t take that through a car wash because you can’t even get inside your car. Not that you can even approach your car when the poop is also on fire. This is what happens when you live next to a wizard who breeds Phoenixes. In stories, a Phoenix is supposed to bring good luck or help people, but these ones just fly around and annoy everyone like pigeons. They like to perch on top of everyone’s house and it's hard not to be worried that one day the roof would cave in because of it. I didn’t know Phoenixes even grew that large. When it comes to dealing with a problem like this there are a few options. All of which I’ve tried. The first is to talk to the neighbor. I knocked on his door and he answered. The wizard was what you would expect an old wizard to look like. Gray beard, robes, a pointed hat, he had everything. Of course I was angry, but I tried to be civil. I asked him if he could try and keep the birds away from my house or keep them under control and he made an excuse about how the Phoenixes are their own creatures and go wherever the wind takes them. I then asked if at the very least he could use some kind of magic spell to clean my car. He merely laughed and told me that magic doesn’t work that way. The next step was to take up my concerns with the local ruling bodies. Since this was a magic related issue I had to go talk to the council. Unlike normal people whose buildings look like modern structures, the magic council’s building looks like an old tower. Everything else is like normal government procedures. In order to make my complaint, I have to make an appointment. The soonest they could see me was in about two weeks, or as they said for dramatic effect, a fortnight. They told me they would contact me when they were ready to see me. What they didn’t tell me is that when the council was ready I would be teleported from wherever I was. When it happened, I was at work, and I was using the bathroom. It scared the literal crap out of me. Luckily, the teleportation spell worked as a tunnel so I had time to at least zip up my pants. When I finally saw the council, which was a group of old men in women in robes, they said that Phoenix breeding wasn’t illegal, so they couldn’t do anything about it. When they teleported me back to work, they brought me back to the exact place they had taken me, and somebody else was already in the stall. The final step was to take matters into my own hands. I was a hunter, and I had a collection of rifles. If none of the wizards would take care of the Phoenixes, then I would. At least if one landed on my house. One did, which was signaled by the loud thud which shook the house and knocked off some ornaments from my shelves. I took my best rifle and went outside. My goal was to scare off the beast. I aimed at it, but a couple feet away so the bullet would pass it’s head. As I fired, the bird turned it’s head and the bullet struck it right in the eye. I freaked out because I thought I had just killed the Phoenix and then the wizard would take his revenge on me. What I had forgotten was that when a Phoenix dies, it burns up and revives itself from the ashes. This is indeed what happened, however in the ensuing rebirth, the fire took my house with it. When it was over, I threw my gun down, sat on the sidewalk and cried. After everything, most people would pack up what they could and either stay with a friend or family member, or get a hotel room. But I couldn’t do either, because my car was still covered in flaming Phoenix poop. I hate magic.