I Thought Halloween Was Over

I went to deposit my unemployment check yesterday, which you have to do the old-fashioned way by going into the bank. No direct deposit with the EDD.
   This is a trip I make on foot, another excuse to get out and see my neighborhood, enjoy the semi-clean SoCal air and refamiliarize myself with what sunlight is. Usually it's a pleasant half hour. Usually.
   So as I was walking back yesterday, down Green St., I heard crows squawking overhead. Now, for my Texas friends familiar with grackles, crows are not them. Grackles are small, kind of brown-black birds that generally speaking behave themselves and know their place in the man-bird hierarchy. Crows are big, jet black, and think they're better than you. They lumber along the sidewalk, only grudgingly getting out of the way at the last minute.
   They're also loud. They were overhead in these berry-dropping trees that line Green St., about three or four of them, having a regular conversation amongst themselves. So far nothing out of the ordinary.
   I made it to the next block, and the crows were still loud as ever. I couldn't see them up in the trees but I could absolutely hear them. Were they following me?
   I reached the next block, no more berry-dropping trees, and I saw the crows at last. Four of them, two Heckles and two Jeckles, squawking at each other, and probably at me. But I thought they couldn't possibly be following me. What do I have that crows could want?
   But they were following me. I turned down Oak Knoll, and two of them plopped on the ground in front of me. They ambled along, talking to their buddies in the trees as I got more and more creeped out.
   When I got to the Lutheran Church they disappeared. And I thought I was home free. But when I rounded the corner, they were back, moving from tree to tree and making enough noise to raise the dead. I imagine. I walked quicker, trying to make it home before whatever the crows were planning came about.

Was I reading too much into it? Possibly. Was I being a bit of a sissy? Perhaps. Was I giving crows too much credit? Not at all. Let a bunch of cawing crows follow you for four blocks, disappearing only when you pass a church, and see how crazy you get. Creepy.