I confess I jumped about 6 feet straight up. Which was a mistake on a wet pineneedle hummocked forest, since the moment I came back down I slipped and carommed off a log covered in fungus, and slimed myself in mud. That damn parrot. What do you call a soup that asks for its own crackers? Cream of Parrot Soup. And that was what I wanted to do to Enrico on an average day when the Millers across the way put him in the window and he whistled sea shanties and talked about his days with Captain Kidd who died about 3 hundred years ago, and Enrico had essentially sailed around Cape Pet-Store-in-the-Crossroads-Mall from egg on up, who did he think he was fooling?
"Pheeeoh," said Caruso, "Awwwk, awwkward, Bad Muffy, AAAk!"
I strolled up to the cage, and gave him the Medusa stare. He goggled at me in fear -- or maybe he just goggled, parrots not having a big range of facial expressions; i.e. goggling is about it.
"The name is Marlene, bird. You have two options. You can make with the cute Muffy talk and the bottles of rum and the ho ho ho and no one will hear you even if you do the death scene from Tosca because you will die in your cage a few crappy little aluminum bars from the big world out here, or you can clean your mouth and take your chances that I won't turn you into a pile of green feathers where you perch, and I might let you out sometime before THE SNOW FALLS. Think about it." And I picked up a twig in my teeth and chewed it a little and then jammed it into the cheap cage lock so he couldn't do his Houdini trick, and turned and flounced off towards the next cage, which would in itself have been a pretty good move, if I hadn't slipped and fallen again on my tush. Parrot cackles followed.