May we add "tell a story involving baby birds" to the list? (Especially if you've already caught flak for strapping the family dog to your station wagon's roof.)

As part of his ongoing campaign to convince America that he's not a cyborg encased in a cryogenic exoskeleton and sent back from the future to destroy mankind--so far, it has involved weeping in public and wearing sweaters--Mitt Romney kicked off last night's Romney Family Christmas Party by doing just that.

Speaking to capacity crowd of 1,200 supporters at the local Sheraton here in West Des Moines, Romney said it was the presence of his son Josh on stage that prompted him to "think back" to the time when "Josh and Matt, his older brother, found a bird's nest." According to a veteran embed, it was a new addition to the Romney routine.

"The nest had fallen to the ground; there were little tiny birds in it; they didn't have feathers; their eyes weren't open--and they brought it into the house," he said. "Little guys that they were."

Hoping to save their son's adorable avian friends, Mere and Pere Romney quickly called the Audubon Society. They were told that "the prospects of keeping these birds alive are not very good." But after the Romneys insisted, Audubon cautiously recommended a diet of dog food sliced "like worms" and administered with tweezers.

Did it work? It sure did, said Romney. Against all odds, "these guys kept all five birds alive"--and even taught them to fly. The crowd gasped. Soon, added Romney, "the birds followed [Josh and Matt] wherever they would go. When they came home from school the birds would fly across the yard and land on their head, their shoulders. The postman got a little nervous when that happened to him a couple of times." Insert laughter here.

So what's the moral of the story? Funny you should ask. For the entire, rambling tale--touching as it was--I was wondering the same thing. Perhaps Romney was riffing on our responsibility to others, I thought. You know, the power of community. But no.

"It was interesting to me," said Romney, "to see that even a little bird will imprint off a human and copy the human."

Interesting, indeed. It seems those little birds really did make an impression on Mitt.

We kid, we kid (he was talking about family values). And anyway, everyone knows that real robots don't save animals--they vaporize them with a blast from their shoulder-mounted plasma cannon. So Romney's totally safe.