Smart Pets

What are they thinking when their owners don't?

Unearthing old Illustrator files Author found this image.

I’m Leo, named after a dog. My cage sits by the sliding glass door allowing me to view the trees, especially trees with the white bark and black markings. My relatives from the tropics never saw trees like that. One day when my owners let me out of the cage as they sometimes do, hopefully having forgotten to close the sliding screen, I will be free to explore those tall white stalks. I’ve heard these trees are called birch trees. That sounds just like “perch” like the perch inside my cage.

They talk about “rhyming,” which is a word that sounds like “timing” as in when are you going to feed me next? And how about changing the water in my cage? These two humans like it when I perch on their fingers as they walk me through their apartment.

Yesterday they brought another bird into my cage. I’m not happy about this. They called the new bird simply “The Other One.” How lazy they are, these two humans who have no idea what it feels like to have a stranger suddenly thrust upon you, crowding your personal space. After all, I was here first. TOO (The Other One) has greenish feathers not as brilliant as my bright blue plumage. Our droppings look and smell the same. Maybe TOO is quiet and shy from fear because he was raised in one of those illegal pet operations that keep us in dark cages.

TOO stays by himself even though I have made efforts to flit around the cage and have tapped my beak against his to say hello. Welcoming him is not in my job description. My job is to garble speak and tweet all day pretending to say some of their fancy words like, “Polly want a cracker?” What are they thinking? I’m no parrot!

They are not bird lovers. They talk to me so they don’t have to talk to each other. Actually, they are rarely in the room at the same time. He ignores me most of the time while she changes my paper. She brought a toy with a bell into my cage last week but now with The Other One, there’s less room so she put it on a table and claps when I ring the bell.

I can’t wait for that moment when the sliding door is open and I’m sitting on her shoulder and she opens the screen and lets me onto the balcony. What does she think? That I’m going to fly into that house and ring the bell instead of flying off to the perch tree or whatever it’s called. Weeks ago, before The Other One, I might easily have done that—she brought me outside onto the balcony. I was so excited to be on her shoulder as we sat together on the lawn chair. She spoke to me affectionately and I was giving her little parakeet beak kisses. It was so intimate and then we walked back into the main room. She slid the screen door closed and she let me fly around the apartment for a good two hours.

Maybe she forgot me. Then she found me eating the lining paper in one of the kitchen cabinets and she put me back in the cage. Weeks later, TOO arrived. Next time she brings me outside I will escape. That will show them not to be so cavalier. After all, they never asked permission or thought about how I felt about a roommate. The least they could have done was to put a female in my cage. That would have changed everything.