Gilbert's day was not going according to plan whatsoever. The plan was, sleep in, eat, maybe read that new book that Toni had lent him, and then sleep some more. In that order, nothing more, nothing less.
He'd really been putting in the hours at work lately, four 12 hour shifts this week alone. He co-owns an autoshop downtown with his younger brother and lately the shop has been absolutely swamped. Since the shop specializes in older classic makes, usually the two man team of him and his brother keep things running smoothly. They get a steady trickle of work, not a lot, but the type of people that actually drive cars like that, will pay a pretty penny to keep them running, so it all works out in the end. But for some reason the past couple of weeks had been hell, they were certainly happy to have the extra money coming in, but it was starting to really put them through the ringer.
His younger brother Ludwig usually runs the front of the shop and talks to the customers while Gilbert does the finer tuning and finicky work on the cars. Ever since he was little, he just had a knack for fixing things, even if it had their father totally stumped, after a couple minutes of whacking around, talking to himself, and banging, Gilbert would have it up and running again.
In the past back when their father was still around and the boys were young, Gilbert had been in charge of the front of the shop because his father didn't trust him around the cars. Sure he would usually fix the thing, but usually only after breaking a couple other things, scraping the paint, and somehow dropping a wrench on little Ludwig. But he wasn't much better out front either. Gilbert had this certain something, that within 5 minutes of talking to a potential customer, resulting in them pissed off and stomping out the door. (might have something to do with his habit of telling them how ugly their car was, and why did you wait so long to bring it in, look at how bad it is, it'll be a miracle if we can fix it!)
After their father past, the brothers had a tough time keeping the shop afloat, but they had just enough loyal customers to get by, and eventually word got around the area, that if you could get past the obnoxious mechanic, they did quality work for fair prices.
Nowadays Ludwig does all the talking and although occasionally a snide remark floats out the window that connects the shop to the main office, Gilbert doesn't scare any more customers off, (or at least not nearly as many).
Gilbert was ready for a weekend of pure relaxation, Ludwig was running the shop, and he could finally get some well deserved rest. Or at least that was the plan.
It was 11:00 am, and Gilbert was still dead asleep, he had gotten in horrendously late last night after rushing to finish a job that was supposed to be done at 12 today and he would not accept less than nine hours of sleep, at the bare minimum.
Suddenly the sound of heavy metal rock broke the silence of the apartment, waking Gilbert up with a crash, and setting his pet bird off squawking indignantly at being woken up so rudely.
"What idiot is calling me so early?" he grumbles still half asleep while whacking around the mussed up covers of his bed for the cellphone.
He finally untangles the phone from the bed just before the ringtone ends, not bothering to look at the caller ID, "I was having the most awesome dream which you have so unawesomely interrupted-"
"Brother it's me, I know I said I would run the shop today but I need you to come down right now" said Ludwig sounding a little out of breath. He had been in the shop working until a couple minutes ago, and was now on his way to his car outside.
"What? Bro come on, I've almost finished the transformation into zombie. If I don't get some sleep I'm gonna keel over." said Gilbert flopping back into bed and pulling the covers over his head.
"I have to go help with Feliciano with something, I'm sorry but you have to come in" said Ludwig.
"Aww you're always rushing over there! What's he up to now?" whined Gilbert.
"Apparently he's in the process of trying to climb that nearly 50 foot tree in front of his house, and he'll crack his head open if I don't go stop him."
Feliciano has a cat that he absolutely adores, and since he's also an amazing cook, he tends to overfeed said cat so it's quite fat. It's a miracle it got up a tree in the first place, and there is no way it's going to get down again by itself. Feliciano is also about the clumsiest person Ludwig has ever met so not stopping him from climbing that tree after his cat, is practically signing Felciano's death warrant.
Ludwig lists off a couple things that need to be done, and reminds Gilbert of the 12:00 appointment of one of their most important clients picking their car up.
"I have plenty of time stop nagging, sheesh" complains Gilbert as he slowly rolls out of bed and walks over to his pet bird Gilbird's cage, (he thought it was a very smart name when he was 12, and refused to change it once he got older and realized that it may sound just a tad lame).
"Brother you might want to bother looking at a clock, I'm sorry but I need to go now, please make sure to get there on time!" said Ludwig quickly before hanging up.
Gilbert opened Gilbird's cage and petted the small bird a bit, and poured some food in it's dish. As he poured some water into Gilbird's bowl, he glanced at the time on the cellphone. 11:15 flashed the small screen.
"Shit!" he swore quickly putting the jug of water down and started to run around the apartment getting dressed; it takes half an hour to get to the shop without traffic, and of course that client always like to get there early.
He gets a half presentable set of clothes on, grabs his wallet, cell, and a bagel from the kitchen and bangs out the door, not before yelling over his shoulder to the birdcage, "Bye bud I'll see ya later!"
The door slams shut, and Gilbird chirps a little goodbye after his owner. The bird hops over to his freshly filled food dish eats a bit, and then notices something. The door to his cage is open! And of course he exits the cage, flies a couple victory loops of the room, as he is very proud that he escaped that horrid cage.
It actually is a huge cage, with lots of toys and sprigs of millet seeds for him to nibble on (Gilbert probably has spent more money on his bird than food in the past year), but the bird is always most happy when Gilbert takes him out and let him sit on his shoulder while he reads. Eventually the victory laps became boring, and Gilbird lands on a counter looking for something new to do.
The drapes across the living room flutter a bit drawing the bird's attention, and alert him to the fact that Gilbert had left the big bay window open overnight. Since the apartment is on the second floor, Gilbert leaves the window open pretty much 24/7 in the summer to let the breeze in, but always makes sure to close it before letting Gilbird loose. Gilbird flutters over to the window sill and chirps, cocking his head curiously towards another open window across the way.
The apartment across from Gilbert's has been empty for a couple months now, but a new tenant moved in just a couple days ago. And apparently had left their window open to air things out.
Just the opportunity a bored little bird needs!
So Gilbird gracefully flies across the gap and through the open window. The bedroom is almost completely bare expect for a futon and a stack of yet to be unpacked boxes across the wall. Finding this boring, Gilbird glides into the next room, which consists of a small kitchen and a living room with one couch, and some more boxes. He lands on the kitchen counter, and chirps again, looking around to see if there is anybody around.
No one around, but he smells something tasty! The small bird skitters around onto the adjoining counter and finds a plate with two pieces of toast on it. It's no millet seed, but it will certainly do. Gilbird gets to work happily pecking through his first piece of toast, not noticing the woman that just walked into the room, until she gives a little gasp upon seeing a bright yellow bird on her counter, eating her breakfast, in her supposedly bird free apartment?