For reasons known only to adolescent girls my friend Kate and I started communicating with extremely loud calls of, “Ka-kaw!” at some point during high school.
When trying to locate each other on the quad in lieu of cell phones we made do with good old fashioned screeching. The first call was always a lower tone. When one of us heard the cry we’d immediately echo it back at a higher pitch like dinosaurs playing Marco Polo.
This was probably obnoxious for all our classmates but man did we zero in on each other right quick. It was great. I never had to look for her in a huge crowd I just had to unleash my lack of social decorum in sonic waves. My only defense was that we only used it for out of doors. We weren’t monsters.
It served us extremely well the one time we went skiing together. She was a newer skier and got off the ski lift before I did after a stroke of bad luck and poor planning on our parts. By the time I had my skis on the snow I couldn’t see her. Worried, I took off down the mountain, not spotting her.
I planted my skis when I realized I must have passed her somehow. She couldn’t have made the same time as me. I threw my head back and shrieked, “Ka-kaw!!”
The sound cut across the cold thin air, sharp and carrying. To my delight and the surprise of several snowboarders going past me there was an answering “Ka-kaw!!!” from further up the mountain, reverberating joyously.
I’ve had this turkey post pinged several times, I can only say that I’m glad my friend and I aren’t the only bird girls out there.
