Burritos and birds

The scene was perfect. I settled into the warm soft sand, the waves crashing a hundred feet away, remnants of a winter storm churning the water into whitewash littered with giant bulbs and salty strands of kelp. A couple of seagulls landed behind me, hopping and screaming into the wind.

I uncrumpled the top of the white paper bag and pulled out my prizes one at a time: thin yellow paper and a flour tortilla encasing the goodness of beans, rice, guacamole, lettuce, salsa. Next, the small tub of hot sauces mixed into a fiery green and red soup. It spilled out the sides of my burrito, but the more the better and if you lose a little to the sand, so be it. Finally, several napkins to attempt to contain the mess.


More seagulls gathered. Stupid birds. They are not getting any of this spicy lard filled tastiness.


They closed in, beaks and wings flapping as I bit into my lunch. The din became louder and I started to wonder if eating on the beach was such a good idea. I looked around. No one else seemed to be having any problems. Maybe that was because no one else was eating on the beach. Clue number one.

The second bite was a medley of hot sauce and beans, a tiny taste of guac, a grain of rice. But it was big and it took me a couple of moments to chew.


And that’s when it happened.


Bold and swift, a seagull swooped towards the food in my left hand and took an even bigger bite. The crowd went wild. Two dozen birds up in the air, squawking and flapping and getting closer to my burrito. And my face. Swinging at them does not help. Walking away does not help. But for a moment- ok, two moments- I thought, I’ll just rip the top part off the burrito and eat the rest, this is too good to waste. And then warnings of avian flu and the thought of seagulls eating trash and all those practical things kicked in: I wasn’t going to finish the burrito.


I could have made my life easier and simply thrown the thing as far as I could, but I didn’t want those little fuckers to win. So I walked down the beach, seagull entourage flapping and calling and shitting all around me, until I reached a metal oil drum trash can and threw the yellow paper wrapped southern California specialty as hard as I could into the depths, daring a bird to go in after it.

As I walked down the beach, burrito-less and seagull-less, I passed a younger man in a large jacket and beanie on this sunny day, a dirty pack on his rounded back and a trash bag in his hands. He picked through the metal oil drum trashcans as he walked through the sand and I turned around to see if he would pick out my food.
He didn’t. Sigh of relief. But how lucky am I to be able to throw away barely eaten food just because a bird wanted to share?
How many people have that option?