He landed on my patio furniture and sat there like he belonged, joyfully chirping, singing a song with lyrics only a parakeet could understand, he was free at last and enjoying every minute of it.
“Holy shit! There’s a parakeet on our deck, we need to catch it before it gets away!” That’s the only thing I could say, before Damian grabbed the nearest box and charged at the thing like a…well…a tall lanky man with a box to a parakeet. I can’t tell you how many times we “almost” caught it, till the time we actually did catch it, but I can say this; If we had a video camera we’d be $10,000 richer.
I walked around the neighborhood looking for anyone who may be out searching for a lost bird, questioned a few people and no one seemed to be missing our new friend. We ended up taking it into the house and fed it some finch food from the feeder where it ate like it hadn’t eaten in days. We decided that we should give it a name for the time being, and since Damian was the one who ultimately caught it, we thought that naturally we should name him Omen. The we got to thinking, we could keep it here for a few days and see if anyone posts anything around the neighborhood, but then again, it would be living in a Hefeweizen beer box, which unless you’re a German bird, is not a way for any down-home parakeet to live. Or, we could keep the bird, buy a cage, deal with its incessant chirping and bird shit until it finally drops dead , or we could take it to Petco where the lady said they would keep it for a few days in the back room and then if nobody claims it they will adopt it out. So, we chose option “C”, packed up Omen in a grocery bag and off to Petco we went.
I owned a yellow parakeet once in college, his name was Clem and he was a little bastard. Especially when he hung around with my roommate’s cockatiel “Chicken.” Clem and Chicken would fly around the house together and shit all over everything, while gnawing on the beautiful built-in buffet that was in our dining room…damn, if I only knew then what I know now. I eventually gave Clem away to this little Mexican boy that lived across the street where Clem was no longer Clem...Clem was now "Pedro."
I haven’t thought much about Clem, or Pedro, or whoever he became, and that makes me kind of sad…yeah…not really, but whatever. And to Clem and Omen, wherever you two may be, may your wings never get clipped, and your chirps never be silenced, here’s looking at you…cheers!
14 comments:
This man in my office recently adopted a bird from one of our students. Its name is Gigi McBird.
It's nice to look at, but I would never want one.
I would love to have seen that play out! :)
Who's Damien?
Cool story! Pets in general always SEEM like a good idea. Glad you took option C. You're very wise indeed.
How rare. I girlfriend of mine once caught a hamster who was just strolling down the road... She always joked it was a wild hamster.
I'm off to buy a pellet gun.
I can't say I hate birds, cause I kinda love all animals, but man I hate birds. Flying around, singing songs, and carrying lice is fine by me... as long as its OUTDOORS! How come you can teach the things to talk ad do the two-step on a wooden dowel, but you can't teach them not to shit in your hand? Bird brains!
I never understood the fascination with birds as pets. And your experience of screaming birds crapping all over the place seems to back up my suspicions quite nicely.
Well, birds are a mess!. I loved them when I was a kid, but not sure I would want one now. Of course, now, now I wouldn't have one anyways.
Wow a link to my blog! I am honored!
I have a friend who hates birds, but never uses the word "bird" to describe them. It's always "flying icks". Pretty well sums it up, LOL. I can appreciate their beauty in the wild, but I definitely don't want them flying and pooping inside my house.
BTW, I enjoy your writing and have blogrolled you at my site.
I would have loved to see that.
There are wild parakeets in London. Some say they were introduced by Jimmy Hendricks, He was tripping on acid round at some bird's house what had a parakeet in a gilded cage as a pet as was fashionable in Nottinghill at that time. He said, "Birds should be free, man, and parakeets," and let it fly free.
Word got around and all the mods with parakeets freed theirs too and now they're bloomin everywhere.
I love the mental picture of everyone trying to corner a parakeet. It's really nice of you to work so hard to reunite him with his owner.
That was really nice of you, my husband would have told me to ignore it.
I had a cockatiel named Zeus in college (he looked like a little thundercloud, and I was a Greek Mythology buff). He was great, as long as you weren't wearing any jewelry or had any writing on your shirt, or anything glittery near you, or your hands smelled like any food item. But despite all that, we have a great picture of him when he flew to the top of our little 3' fake Christmas tree and became our instand tree-topper.
I ended up giving him to this nice professor I knew that wanted a companion bird for her little chicky cockatiel. So basically, I helped my little boy get some... beak.
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