#13 Intuition: A Personal Narrative

“No. No way. There’s no way that actually just happened,” I groaned inwardly. The feelings I felt and warnings I received were real, some innate ability I never knew I possessed. The almost supernatural siren inside followed by abhorrent disgust were feelings I would not soon forget that night—or ever, for that matter.

The winter of 2004 was chilly, so a few days of February spent in Hawaii were the perfect chance for my family to take a trip and warm up a bit. Through some of his friends, my dad managed to get some tickets for us to go see the Pro Bowl that year, so the entire family flew over the Pacific Ocean to visit Hawaii for the first time. I had the chance to visit some incredible places in nature, the LDS temple, and many other sights and experiences Hawaii had to offer. During our stay, however, I could never have anticipated what we would really experience and what sort of souvenirs and stories would come home with us.

            One evening, my family and I were walking the busy streets of a shopping district near our hotel. The night was starting to get dark, as it was still winter, but the warm, muggy air made walking outside and perusing the shops comfortable and enjoyable. On one particular street, my mother decided to step into a shop to look at clothing, something my eleven-year-old self was not about to sacrifice his dignity over. My dad and grandparents continued on to another store, so my siblings and I sat down to wait for Mom to have her fill and move on. I plopped down on the sidewalk near the store entrance, whipped my GameBoy out of its trusty pouch on my belt, and fired up the game I was currently working on. As soon as the screen lit up, I became completely oblivious to the world around me. As I sat there for a few minutes with the light of the screen reflecting off my glasses and illuminating my face, a voice called out in our general direction.

“Hey, man,” the voice barked, “get off the GameBoy. You’re on vacation!” The sudden command shattered the fantasy world I was in and startled me. My eyes quickly scanned the surrounding street, trying to identify the source of the call, when I spotted him. A man who looked like a boulder on the beach rumbled out of the darkness and began filling my view. He had a massive frame with tough, dark skin that had been beaten for many years by the waves of the sea and light from the Hawaiian sun. His stony face was marked with age and moss-like patches of hair. He looked unkempt dressed in a faded, flowery, button-up shirt and worn, well-used board shorts. The smell of sea-salt and sweat began to cloud my senses. He casually lumbered up to me in his flip-flops as I noticed that he was in the company of two exotic-looking birds. He carried a smaller, bright green parrot in his hand and a massive red parrot on his shoulder, as if the birds found a place to rest on a boulder as it picked itself up out of the sand and trudged toward the mainland. As I met eyes with the larger parrot, we immediately struck up a mutual dislike for each other. The man loomed over my comfortable spot on the sidewalk, and I felt shame for being called out by such a large, unexpected, and unusual stranger.

“What are you doing playin’ games, man?” he reiterated, “You’re in Hawaii! You should enjoy it!” As he moved closer, his birds shot judging glares at me, and fear started to boil inside me. I wished my mom would leave the store and rescue her helpless child from his plight. I looked to each of my siblings for help, but they avoided the gaze of the man and allowed him to harass my innocent moment of play. I felt alone and began to feel the itch of my natural instincts to flee well up inside, yet I remained frozen in place by a fledgling fear of birds that seemed to flutter down and perch on my shoulders. As I began to flush with embarrassment, my mother left the store only to find herself on the verge of the scene at hand.

Her look was initially puzzled as she moved towards us but changed to curiosity when she noticed the birds the man held. “What’s going on? Wow! Are those your birds?” she asked.

The mischievous grin the man wore instantly changed to a harmless, jolly smile as he turned to my mother and said, “Yeah! Would you like to take some pictures of your kids with my birds?”

My mom began pulling out her camera, and a sudden realization electrocuted my senses: if I were to be forced to take pictures with these birds, I would have to get close to them or, even worse, hold them. Alarms silently screamed in my head as I began pleading with my mother to take us away and thereby halt the nagging warning siren in my head. I approached my mother and told her I didn’t want to take any pictures with this man or the parrots. Something inside me was crying out, a quick jolt warning me of some unknown danger the nature of which I couldn’t make out. Still, I knew something wasn’t right; something was going to happen. Upon asking me why I didn’t want to take pictures, I expressed to my mom my gut feeling and deepest fears concerning the birds.

“Mom, I don’t want those things on me,” I protested in low tones, pausing as I worked up the courage to confide in her, “They’re going to…poop on me!”

My mother’s face cracked open in smile as my siblings and the abhorrent man overheard my fears and laughed. “You ain’t got nothin’ to worry about, man. This bird ain’t gonna poop on nobody,” the man chuckled as he placed one parrot on my older sister’s shoulder and one in her hand. With her picture taken in a flash and with no incident, I was trapped. Nowhere to run. No one to save me. The man retrieved the bird from my sister’s shoulder and placed it on mine. Even though it was the first time a bird had ever perched on me, I felt like it dug its claws into my shoulder for balance with more force than necessary, purely out of spite. With the pictures snapped, I immediately called out, “Okay, I’m done! Get this thing off me now!”

The man, realizing the uncomfortable position I was placed in, said, “Nah man, why don’t we take a picture now with this guy on top of your head!” He grinned as he moved the beast off my shoulder and set it on top of my head. I wanted to run but was frozen in place by my predicament and his insistence. As the behemoth was placed on my head, I felt the dreadful claws grasping for support, tugging at my hair and digging into my scalp, causing my eyes to water. I tried to balance the large weight on my head but struggled as I felt it shift around. The bird turned around to the left, almost 180 degrees, and tilted its head and body forward as I tried posing for this picture. In an instant, my uneasiness turned to fear as I noticed the expressions on the faces of my family. Everyone’s faces dropped from smiles to horror as they looked at me; even the large man’s grin shrunk to a look of surprise. I looked down to see a large white streak, speckled black, running down the front of my shirt and splattering my GameBoy pouch. My fears, realized in full, rushed out of me as my eleven-year-old self roared in horror and disgust. The man sheepishly grabbed his birds, muttered some apology to no one in particular, and was gone before tears of anger spilled out of my eyes. The evening was getting late, so we made our way back to the hotel for me to clean up.

Thoughts of revenge upon the man filled my thoughts as I inwardly raged at the injustice wrought upon me. While I wiped away the tears from my face and the residue from my shirt and pouch, anger bubbled up inside. “I was right the whole time! I knew it, I knew it, I KNEW IT,” I grumbled to myself. The laughter from my dad and grandparents as they later heard the retelling of my misfortune from my siblings only added to my shame. This shock would cause me to be miserable for the next day or so, but recovery was bound to happen in such a fun place like Hawaii.

I decided that night to never again let a gut feeling go unheeded. There was something distinct about what I felt, something beyond my everyday human faculties. A simple trip to Hawaii gave me insight into my own abilities. I cannot recall all the events of our trip, but this event and what I gained from it has stood out to me and remains fresh in my memory. The powers of intuition I discovered would prove themselves from time to time in the future as I would frequently have the same feeling just as an animal was about to relieve its bowels. Sometimes I think of it as a special ability, other times a gift, but I have come to understand that it is a responsibility, a very special and specific form of clairvoyance that would serve to help catch a mess before it ever happens.

Here's the proof.