Thursday, March 27, 2008

Bird Brain

The talking bird in the cage of the animal shelter said "Hey you there kid!"
And I was like "Who me?
And that bird was like "Yea, you! Come ere'. You look like a smart kid!"
I thought it was a joke so I laughed, especially at it's mafioso voice. It was my first day volunteering at the shelter and I hadn't expected to be looking after birds. So I called back to it "Hey bird! You've been watching too much Saprano's, eh? Someone trained you really good."
This upset it cause it molted some feathers and squawked "What, you ain't never seen no intelligent talkin' bird before, ya chump?"
And then I said a little taken aback "Um ... why are you being a cliched character if you're so intelligent, and, you're like, a bird ... And not even a parrot ... Why are you talking?"
I was so weirded out, but I decided to play along with it. I didn't know much about birds, but I did know some could be trained and are smart enough to have whole conversations. It was just, something was off about this bird ..., especially since it looked like a song bird and I never knew of any song birds that could talk.
The bird then told me in a really cranky voice "Look heres you! I may be a cliche with hows I'm talkin to yous, but by God, I'm a frikken' talkin' bird that ain't no parrot or parrot-likes! That's original right? RIght?! I talk and I'm smart, get over it"
So I say a little perturbed "yea, you're right, that's original and okay you're smart. Okay? Um so, what do you want from me?"
The bird eyes me and squawks "Polly wants a cracker!"
"What?" I say, a little takin' back. "I thought you weren't a parrot and you're suppose to be smart, remember? What, you're a pirate's parrot now? You got bird schizophrenia" I say that to push some buttons, or at least test if there were any buttons to push when it comes to birds.
"Polly want's a fuckin' cracker! They're in that drawer over there you nit wit! Why don't you come heres so you can understand better, chump" the bird said rather viciously.
I take a step back, offended, weirded out even more, and started thinking maybe they've finally, and by "they've" I mean the MAN and his henchmen, maybe they've finally spiked our drinking water with that LSD stuff. Maybe I was dropping acid and, well, forgot I dropped and now I'm in a dream talking to a talking song bird, and it's Saturday and tomorrow I go in for my first day of volunteering at the shelter.
So I told that cranky bird, believing this is all a bad trip and in my head "Look, you're so cliched it's hurting my head. First mafia, and now the classic parrot shtick. You don't have to be rude to me you freaky talking bird. If you want a cracker all you gotta do is ask and I'll get you one. Gosh!"
That bird starts chuckling in a voice that, if I was listening from another room, sounded like he was hacking up a hair ball. "Gosh?!?" It laughed or rather hacked. Oh my god! This kid is killin' me! "Gosh", who says "gosh"? Haha!"
That pissed me off. "You're making fun of me now oh Mr. Polly wants a fuckin' cracker!" I spit back at it, mad at myself for being mad at a stupid talking bird that incidentally was suppose to be intelligent, but it was stupid, and maybe I was stupid too, or high. That thought made me madder.
The bird composed itself, settle it's ruffled feathers and lowered its body closer to the stick on which it was perched "Hey kid, that's whys I told you to come here and by here I mean close. And whens yous gets here, you'll all of a sudden get smarter."
The bird said that so calmly and so authoritatively that I felt a little compelled, but also grumpy "Okay," I said, and edged closer to the bird cage, and it waved it's wing until I was close enough.
The bird then whispers to me "Yea, you smart shit look over there!" It directed it's wing to a cage on the right that I hadn't noticed Beneath the cage was a sign that said "Polly". "Yea" the bird said, "That's Polly and he hasn't eatin' all day. So, get him a fuckin' cracker you stupid human else he'll die and they'll liquidate you; and no, I don't means kill yous, I mean you won't be able to volunteer here anymore!"
I was pissed off, but the bird was right, so I didn't say anything. Besides, it's no fun being out smarted by a bird brain. I gave Polly its crackers. That other bird though, that smart little bird with the foul mouth, it eyed me the whole time. When I finished the job I turned to it and said "You could have said that from the get go!" I gave it the finger and promptly left the room. I could hear it squawking something foul back at me, but blah, I had enough of its antics.

I went home that evening and the next week when I returned to the shelter, the bird was gone, but Polly was there.
"How are you Polly?" I jokingly said, thinking that what went down last week was just the result of a bad trip or something I'd been "recreationally" indulging in.
"You stupid shit" it squawked unintelligently.
And, well, I don't work there anymore.

1 comment:

Shel said...

"polly wants a f-ckin' cracker!"