From Feed It to the Worms, a collection of very short stories for small children.
I woke up to a couple mourning doves fighting in my garden. They were yelling at each other nonstop to the point where I had to go outside and say, “Guys, what is going on?”
They both folded their wings and looked at the sky instead of each other and tapped their feet. And I said, “Hey, don’t you guys mate for life?” And they both shrugged.
“Come on, don’t tell me you’re gonna be the first mourning doves to get divorced?!”
They shrugged again.
“You’re gonna ruin your family’s tradition? Over what? What could be the big deal?”
And they both blurted out together, “She doesn’t listen to me!” “He doesn’t listen to me!” And then they both said, “See?”
“Oh boy,” I said. “I know what the problem is. Neither of you are wearing thinking caps.”
“What??” they both yelled. “Birds don’t wear thinking caps!”
“Hold on,” I said. And I went to my craft bin and made a couple really tiny caps and placed them on their tiny heads. And after a minute, they both smiled.
“You look funny,” the one said to the other.
“Oh yeah?” she laughed. “You look pretty funny yourself.”
And then they both started laughing.
“Now,” I said. “Whenever you get mad at each other, just put on your thinking caps and look at each other till you find something meaningful to connect about. Ok??”
And every morning since, I get woken up by these guys laughing their beaks off.
