Miss Lonelyheart: "The Birder's Wife"

Number #7 on our all-time list of favorite advice columnists, Tippi "Tip" Pointier returns as Miss Lonelyheart. Always French. Naughty at times. Is there a difference, ma cherie?

Miss Lonelyheart, our columnist at large on “matters of heart and home.”

Dear Miss Lonelyheart,

I’m at my wit’s end. My husband has become a birder. Since Thanksgiving he’s been obsessed. The whole mess started with him carving the turkey, which to be honest is still the only bird he recognizes by sight. Hank couldn’t pick a peacock out of a lineup.

Then he went and downloaded a phone whatchamacallit to identify bird songs. Now the man wanders in the backyard waving it around it like he’s wrangling a dowsing rod.

It gets worse. At Christmas Hank bought himself a Starter Collection of Bird Pins and a horrid birder hat that makes him look like he’s on a safari. Let me tell you, Valentine’s Day’s come and gone and he hasn’t pinned a backyard robin on it.

But one squeal of brakes the man jumps out of bed pointing his phone at the window glass and Sunday morning, our neighbor’s doorbell rang and Hank yelled “quiet!” so loud at the table he made our granddaughter cry, not to mention clearing the trees out. The only thing that settled our little dear was letting her pin a pigeon nobody had even seen.

Don’t even get me started on last year’s whatchamacallit identifying garden plants. “They’re all weeds, sweetheart. Mow,” I said. I thought you’d get a kick.

I’ve so missed your column on tipping, and I’m heartsick over your arrest in Shanghai. Are you still French?

The Birder’s Wife,

Dolores

Dear Birder’s Wife,

I welled up reading your note. My accent may have faded in Shanghai, but my heart still beats à Paris!

Reading your letter I imagine you both: Hank and Dolores, lovers from childhood, in bedroom embrace, little white birds pecking at the windowpane.

Oh! Your laughter in the middle of the night as Hank reaches for his phone on the nightstand, your bare body half wound in sheets. Skin and satin! Your gentle smile as Hank tugs his hat over his eyes to make you laugh. Mon dieu, it’s a film!

You are so, so close to heaven. Let me help you find it! Then go on without me!

Do you know the cry of the trumpeter swan, Dolores? One burst of song at the end of her life, a cry of romantic despair, a goodbye to love and pounding hearts, to brimming eyes and grass-stained hands rough upon the breasts. The call of the trumpeter swan can be recognized even by a novice. Let her last cry be Hank’s first. (Other than your own petit cri, ma cherie!)

How I laugh and weep as I write!

Écoute-moi! Download the same bird whatchamacallit. If you look in the “Birds of the Yukon” region setting you will find the trumpeter swan. The prochaine fois he mows your backyard, play her tragic song in secret.

Then rush to him, waving your arms to stop his mowing and cry out, “Hank! Hank! I’ve heard the trumpeter swan! The bird of tragic love! Do you have your phone? Let the phone’s ears be our ears!

At nightfall with eyes wet and hearts sated, pin the trumpeter swan upon his cap. Of course, make sure you’ve purchased the 500 pin Advanced Birder Collection!

How you will caress then! Hank and Dolores! Skin and satin! Oh, I envy you!

As for me, yet another man has fled! My heart is broken. I’ve known love but once, and it ruined me.

But do not cry for me! Be happy, Dolores! Fly!

Je t’embrasse,

Miss Lonelyheart

The author with his “whatchamacallit” bird song identifier captured on a “hunt” in the “woods.” “Dad, you don’t even have any shoes on.” (Safari Birder Hat and Yukon Bird Pins sold separately.)

Don’t ever say Paid Subscribers don’t get the good stuff, and just look at that Eastern Wood-Pewee! Cuuuute.