I Do Not F with Owls

You ever think about how fragile kids’ minds are?

Like one off-hand comment sticks with them forever.

You’re just talking, but to a kid, it’s Holy Bible scripture.

That’s why you gotta be real careful what you tell kids — because you never know how the story it’s gonna live in their heads.

My grandma didn’t leave a story — she left a damn horror movie.

So when I was like 7 or 8, my grandma says, “Don’t EVER… look an owl in the eye. If you do, someone around you love is gonna die.”

She didn’t give me no other details.

She just hit me with this and then went back to whatever grandmas do.

So fast forward. One night, I’m just chillin’ on the couch, being a kid, and I happen to glance out the window. And there it is. A big-ass owl. Just perched on the cable wire, staring into my soul.

And as soon as I saw it, this owl hit me with the head turn. You know that slow, strange ass owl head turn?

Locked eyes with me and I locked eyes with it.

My grandma’s words were locked in my head: “Never look an owl in the eye…” so I slammed the curtains so hard I almost broke the rod.

Now I’m sitting there thinking, “Dang I looked it in the eyes, I know better.”

So I went to bed that night, scared out of my mind.

And the next morning, I wake up, and they tell me my great-grandfather had passed.

Bruh. It was my grandma’s father.

When the funeral came, I was crying harder than everybody. People were like, “Aww, he must’ve been really loved to his great-grandpa.”

Nah, man, I was crying because I thought I had assassinated him.

And you know what’s wild? I kept that secret for YEARS. I didn’t tell a soul.

All the way into adulthood.

Finally, one day, I was like 25 years old, I couldn’t take it anymore. I told one of my Uncles, “I looked an owl in the eye when I was a kid, and that’s why great-grandpa died.”

He laughed until he cried.

He was like, “You really thought you killed Grandpa? He died from lung cancer.”

All them years, I thought it was me..

So yeah.

Be careful what you tell kids, man. My grandma had me thinking I killed Grandpa for decades.

And to this day, I still don’t like owls.

And I never will.