For the  start of the May 2-4 weekend I made plans with a friend of mine to head downtown to the Habourfront and do some walking to embrace the beautiful mid-20°C weather. We stopped off at Nathan Phillips Square first, because I had a craving for some poutine (as usual). I was feeling a bit hungrier than usual, so I decided to order a hot dog as well (haven’t had street meat in years). I paid for my meal, and the vendor gave me my hot dog and poutine combo in one of those two-compartment styrofoam containers. Topped my hot dog off with some ketchup, mustard, and relish… looked delicious!

“Let’s find a bench in the shade where we can sit,” I say to my friend, turning to her slightly.

No word of a lie, I hear a squawk and out of the corner of my eye I see a flash of something white, felt it graze my face. I scream, still managing to hold on to my tray of food. I look down and see that my hot dog is gone!

Not even seconds later I hear birds squawking,  and see two dozen sea gulls attacking what’s left of my hot dog metres from where I was standing in shock. It was like a scene out of Hitchcock’s The Birds.

A freakin’ seagull had the audacity to fly millimeters away from my face, swoop down, snatch up my hotdog from my hands and fly away with it!

It picked up my entire hot dog (bun and all) and few off with it, dropping it on the pavement metres away where it’s hoodlum friends could feast on it. All that was left less than a minute later was a pavement stain of yellow mustard.

This is an exact representation of the seagull that snatched my hot dog right from my hands.

These Toronto birds are brave! What happened to the time when animals were afraid of humans?! My gosh, I swear this gull was probably eying me from the time I left the food truck, like those velociraptors in that kitchen scene from Jurassic Park.

“You’re lucky it didn’t take your poutine too!” said a woman who was also in line at the food truck.

Traumatized and pissed off that half my meal was gone, I went off to find a washroom to scrub my face from the feather brush moments earlier, thinking that next time I venture downtown I should bring a pellet gun to ward off these gull thieves.

Later on in the day at Harbourfront, I saw another woman holding the same order of a hot dog and fries. I was tempted to give her a warning to keep an eye on the sky, but she might’ve deemed me as crazy.

Turns out food isn’t the only thing these calculating creatures steal. Check out this video of a gull flying off with someone’s video camera.

That incident just put a damper on my day. I was really  looking forward to that hot dog.

Freakin’ bird.