Birds are honestly the least of your worries there. Open flues with no caps let in water every time it rains, and that water runs down into the flue and starts breaking down the mortar joints from the inside. Over a few years that turns into cracked tiles and a flue that won't draft right, which is way worse than a nest. Also critters like raccoons and squirrels will climb right down in there and you won't know till you hear scratching. Caps are like twenty bucks, cheapest fix in the whole house.

Ouch, paying 60 bucks to cry over a dude who was never born.

A dead phone and a smelly microwave is a pretty cheap lesson compared to some of the stuff people do for internet points. There are videos of folks boiling eggs in microwaves and having them explode, or dropping phones in liquid nitrogen, and none of that gets 40k shares without someone getting hurt. The water glass detail is actually the funny part, like the waves are little guys who get distracted by a pool and forget about the phone. Your microwave is probably fine, the burnt penny smell is just whatever coating cooked off the inside wall, run it with a bowl of vinegar and water for a few minutes and it'll clear out. Worst case you microwave soup in it and your soup tastes a little weird for one meal.