For the last week or so I’ve been convinced that I’ve moved into a neighborhood with a shooting range near by. Often I’ll hear the distant pop pop pop sound of a gun, and think “This is Oregon, not Santa Ana, it’s a shooting range”.

This morning, ten minutes before my alarm clock went off I was shaken out of bed by the very near and very loud sound of a machine gun. POP POP POP POP POP!

I wasn’t sure if it was imagined in my sleep, or real, so I did what anyone would do and said loudly “What the hell was that?”. That’s about as close as I get to cursing, so this was quite the statement for me at 6:50am. Carrie said “I dunno” in her half asleep state. I laid awake, pondering what this noise was when it happened again.

POP POP POP!

Only three bursts this time. I peeked out the window. There it was again, to my left. I looked up, and what did I see? A big fat stinky woodpecker, pecking the side of my apartment like a big dumb idiot.

I finally understand Woody Woodpecker.