The Day My Team Saved A Life

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I was near the check-out line at Walmart when I saw her. A little thing. A sparrow. A being from the great natural realm, not from the human multi-national retail sphere. She landed in front of me and started walking towards the jewelry counter.

I gasped. A bird! It wasn’t what I expected, having just finished the dull run-through of a big box store methodically checking everything off my shopping list. I don’t think of little sparrows flitting near me when I think of the Walmart shopping experience. I wish I did.

I dropped the purchase of mostly unneeded objects from my mind and focused on this creature. I also did what I do in situations like these. I turned into a soldier.

“Honey,” I told my son, “We need to get this bird out of here.”

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll go pay.” Then he steered his cart into the check-out line, safe, far away from any drama that would surely ensue. I turned the other way and began my journey into bird heroism.

But this bird wanted none of my soldiering. She wanted to explore for as long as time would allow. What’s under the earring counter? What’s over next to those tomatoes? What’s under the necklace display? How can I get away from these women trailing me?

There were two of us now — me and a Walmart employee who also had a bird-saving heart. We became a team. She’d shoo the little winged one toward me and with meticulous stealth, I’d try to capture it from behind with an upside-down handheld plastic shopping basket — to no avail. Birds are smart and observant. I’m slow. I’m a behemoth compared to a sparrow, a shadow generator, and it didn’t help that I was yakking the whole time. Come here, little bird. Don’t move. Stay right where you are. Don’t be afraid.

Whoosh! Down came the basket for the capture.

But in the first nanosecond of the downward swoop of the basket, she’d fly to the next aisle where my teammate was waiting to shoo the bird back towards me. It went like this for a while during which time we gained a sizable following. Customers quickly discovered a far more enticing thing than the hedonic pleasure of consumables: the Walmart Bird Show.

Some people grabbed handheld shopping baskets, too. There are plenty of budding heroes out there. Isn’t that nice to know? Others offered encouragement or openly supported what we were doing, pointing, “She went that way!” These were small acts for a tiny creature, but it was intuitive. Why wouldn’t you want to save a life, or help it through a challenging time?

Soon a new teammate appeared, a woman with a plastic basket who brought smarts to the team. When our feathered wanderer discovered a cluster of unidentified bits on the floor, turning full attention to these edibles — whoosh! The teammate’s basket came down fast and sure and captured our little bird. Victory at last! I couldn’t have been more proud of this woman’s savvy at capturing a bird with a plastic shopping basket. She rocked. I clapped.

“Awesome! You did it!”

Then the hard work began — moving our capture out of the store. This is where my strengths came in handy and the smart woman, who wanted to kick the basket swiftly across the floor to the door, showed weakness.

“No, no,” I told her. “I’ll take this.” And I took over the project from there.

One thing was clear if you watched the bird through the perforated bottom of the basket. A fast-moving basket meant the bird was forced to flip around inside and experience the greatest trauma of her little life. What was needed was patience and grit. As a retired ultrarunner, I have both.

So, as my following in Walmart continued to grow, with children yelling to their moms to come over and look at the bird and couples standing by and enjoying the show, I bent over and inch by inch moved the basket along the floor, past the check-out line, through the front section of the produce area, slowly towards the entrance-exit doors of the store. All the while, reassuring the little one. It’s okay, little birdie. You got this. You’re doing so well. We’re getting there. You’ll be so happy soon.

And through it all was a man. He’d first appeared as a big proponent of what my teammates and I were trying to accomplish. He stood nearby while we tried to capture the bird, offering commentary and encouragement. When I’d say, “I don’t know about this. Maybe Walmart should be doing this instead of me.” He would answer back, “Just keep going. You’ll get there.”

His words reassured me I wasn’t a weirdo lady who butts her head into things because she’s interested in everything under the sun and wants to help those in distress. It’s true, I might have been exactly that, but this man helped me to believe otherwise, and I only did because the idea had merit. It’s a good thing to be curious. It’s a good thing to want to help those who need it.

Even a little bird caught inside a big box store — which is the norm anymore.

As the bird and I made our way to the exit door, this man was there, cheering. I pushed the upside-down basket well past the threshold of the door and onto the sidewalk outside. I didn’t want to trigger the door open and give this birdie another perfect chance to fly back over to the jewelry section.

Others realized this, too. My followers on either side of the door, inside and outside, held off shoppers from approaching so I could release the bird. The Bird Show team had grown into a community effort. People waited momentarily for me to lift the basket and send the bird back into the wild of the parking lot.

I lifted it off. The bird took some tentative steps forward, checked her surroundings, and then flew to freedom and a life without the burden of consumerism — so many choices to flit around to in Walmart, so little time.

The man clapped for the bird, me, for all of us. We smiled at each other and waved goodbye as he walked off across the parking lot to his car. I turned to go back inside to find my son. He’d remained safe this whole time from the drama of social interaction with strangers — not his favorite — and I gained a happy memory for my life’s memory bank. Plus, now we had new Post-it notes, toothpaste, bananas, ground coffee, and a pack of AA batteries. Success on all fronts.

Where are you, bird? Who are you, supportive man? What’s your name, teammate with the basket? How’s your day going, people who cheered?

I’ll never know. But I know teamwork is satisfying, joint effort is worth it, and helping others makes the world go round — for people, birds, you name it. Go, Team.

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Hope you're well, friends.