I admit it: I hate it when I don’t know stuff. I find not knowing what’s wrong with my car infinitely more annoying than knowing it will cost $500 to fix. It’s just part of my personality.

It’s also somewhat annoying that I’m a pretty light sleeper. Little noises can wake me out of a sound sleep, like when my son’s alarm clock goes off at the other end of the house, or a door opens, or someone opens the refridgerator down in the kitchen.

These two eccentricities collided this morning. I’ve been awoken a couple of times to a sort of low frequency booming sound, kind of like the resonant sound you get when you slam the lid on one of those big plastic trash cans, but it happens repeatedly, as if someone was doing it multiple times, just to annoy. And, of course as is the case so often, by the time I pulled on some pants and went outside to investigate, it would stop.

But I finally figured it out: it’s pidgeons.

They are apparently landing on my chimney, and doing something which booms down the metal lined resonant chamber and echoes into my skull. The little blighters have been plaguing my next door neighbor’s house, but a few seem to come and settle on mine, usually in the morning, and that’s why I can only get six hours of sleep instead of the nine I really need.

Still, I feel better now, although I suspect that maybe a chimney inspection is called for before the winter season really begins. Who knows? Maybe there is a pile of dead pidgeons (or, more likely, pidgeon droppings) lodged in my chimney.

Now I have something new to worry about.