A squirrel broke the bird feeder.
It was supposed to be squirrel-proof, and perhaps it was, but it was so determined.

I was tempted to write a bad review.

I was considering returning it.
I was going to demand retribution for the false advertisement.

I wanted to be human, very human, all too human.

The creature leaped and leaped repeatedly, breaking the pole out of bold determination.

Then, it fed on the seeds. Sitting there with a strange yet blissful dissociated stare, feeding itself robotically.

The nuthatches perched on a low-hanging branch sat with cocked heads and watched. The sparrows did something similar; their twitching gestures, their heads tilting this way and that, sought answers in the critter's actions.

I am projecting.

Do they recognize irony like we humans do? Indeed, if not known by this feeling, there must be an equivalent primal response to what just happened.

I am projecting.

It may be something only we humans enjoy; irony, like the taste of stolen seeds, is more delicious than that which, in fact, yielded the emotion.