The Christmas Parrot

All that my two kids wanted for Christmas was a parrot. Specifically a talking parrot. Anything less just wouldn’t do. Heck, truth be told, that’s all they’d wanted for their birthdays, Holy Days, holidays, any remotely special days AND Christmas for the past three years. I think they actually made up a few gift-worthy days, just to have an excuse to keep up the pressure.

What are you going to do, right? I figure if a kid is THAT persistent, asking for the same thing for three years straight, I should probably reward that determined effort. You know: to encourage perseverance.

Yeah. How dumb can I be, right?

“We’ll take care of it, Mommy,” they whine. “You won’t have to do anything.”

Really, really dumb.

So we live in Kenya. You’d figure that finding a parrot in Kenya wouldn’t be that difficult. I mean, we’re on the equator, for heaven’s sake. That line cuts right through the middle of the country. Aren’t parrots tropical birds? Seriously, how difficult can it be to find one talking parrot?

So here’s the answer: pretty darn difficult.

They’re not really native to Kenya, at least not the species that can learn to talk. And remember, we’re aiming for a winged pet that can talk, or at least has the potential to learn. Why we’d want another talking creature in the house is beyond me. Two kids and a husband should be more than sufficient. Can’t I just buy some fairy wings at the toy store and attach it to one of us?

Apparently that’s not good enough. Go figure.

I keep my eyes peeled for three years for the elusive talking parrot. Three years of watching the bulletin boards and papers. No luck. But my kids get their persistence from somewhere, so I keep looking. And one fine day, I bring a box home. In that box, throwing a minor tantrum, is the desired feather-covered gift. We become the proud owners of a six-month-old African Grey Parrot. My son names him Griffin.

Thing is, Griffin isn’t our only pet. Nope. Not even close. We have a few. So let me give you a visitor’s impression of the Ehsani household. Let’s imagine a couple of innocent souls. They come up with the curious idea to visit our home (they obviously don’t know any better). They cheerfully drive on over, all ready to spend a pleasant time chatting with us.

It all starts as our hypothetical couple approach our beautiful garden entrance cut through the tall hedge and the delicate, iron wrought gate framed by the leafy arch. Birds (not parrots, mind you) twitter and tweet sweetly all around. Blossoms bloom on every possible shrub and flower. The grass is green, the sky is blue, bees are buzzing, la-dee-da.

‘Ah yes,’ our visitors think. ‘What an idyllic garden, a peaceful home.’

And as our naïve visitors reach out a hand towards the gate, an ear-piercing, bone-rattling howl smashes through the orchestra of bird song. The startled humans clutch at each other, trying to imagine what manner of beast could produce such a hair-raising blast. They hold their breaths, waiting. They wonder if they can make it back to the car before whatever it is appears.

But it’s too late.

The roar of sound is accompanied by a vicious blur of black fur about the size and shape of an American football. The football on four legs comes hurtling out of nowhere, the ferocity of its bark capable of intimidating all but a trained lion tamer or a deaf granny. ‘Raising the dead’ isn’t adequate to describe the volume and sheer determination of the noise emitted from the creature.

Meet Mocha, our half dachshund, half something else mutt.

Let’s assume the visitors are still breathing and their hearts still function and they haven’t raced back to their car and sanity. I scream at the kids to go escort our guests to safety. Under threat of something dire, one of them eventually goes out, grumbling, and calls off the hellhound. After surviving that welcome, the guests are led into the sanctuary of our home.

Usually some form of sustenance is required at this point, to resuscitate frail nerves. Tea is offered. The guests gratefully enter the kitchen where a parrot squawks and screeches at them for daring to intrude in his air space. I suspect turkeys raised Griffin for the first part of his life, because he sure sounds like one around Thanksgiving (before the axe, that is). Yes, our parrot talks Turkey. Hey, my kids didn’t specify what language he should speak in.

The guests wisely select seats on the other side of the kitchen. If they’re particularly observation, they might glance over at the kitty litter box with a puzzled expression. Surely we don’t have a cat, they ask. No, no, I say. No cat. That would be crazy to have a cat as well as a dog and a parrot, right?

They never get a chance to ask what the kitty litter box is for, if not for a cat. Just as they begin to relax, become lulled into a false sense of security, the user of the box makes an appearance.

Freckles takes stealth to a whole new level. Absolutely soundless, perfectly camouflaged and seemingly innocent in appearance, she hops over her litter box towards the unsuspecting humans. The grey-brown rabbit, who thinks she’s a dog and used to be house trained until we moved her out into the garden, enthusiastically licks at the guests’ exposed ankles. Not distracted by their gasps and squeals of alarm, Freckles stands up, puts her front paws up close to a guest’s knee and licks some more. If that fails to get her some love and attention, she resorts to nibbling the pants or any other exposed bit of clothing hanging low enough. Given the opportunity, she will chew a souvenir of the visit into the guests’ clothes. Or bite the guests, depending on her mood.

Outside, meanwhile, Mocha is still howling furiously while running around the house, looking for a way in, outraged that anyone dared trespass on her property.

The two tortoises, Keats and Franklin (the third one having hauled shell out of this mad house long ago) ignore her and do their very best to decimate our flower beds. If anyone approaches them, Franklin pretends to be an evolved rock on legs, while Keats hisses and scowls. Since Keats is much bigger than the furry football, that hissing and scowling can be a scary experience.

Back in the kitchen, Griffin and Freckles are fighting. She likes to bite his tail feathers and he retaliates by pecking at her ears. Ouch, that’s gotta hurt. She bounces away to a cupboard someone left open and jumps in. That’s probably not too hygienic, I figure, as I haul her off a set of bowls and shut the door. She’s still upset we blocked off her path behind the fridge. Then again, she did chew up some of the wiring back there.

Now Griffin has decided he needs a mother figure. Guess who that is? Yeah, like I don’t have anything else to do apart from babysit a bird. If I dare eat near him, he wants whatever I have. He won’t stop squawking until I sit him on my shoulder, the miniature turkey that he is, where he eats my food and poops to his heart’s content. That’s gratitude. Maybe in parrot world, it is. I wouldn’t know. I don’t speak parrot or turkey.

And the rabbit has started licking my feet. I better go before she starts chewing up my slippers. Oops. Too late.

So there it is: we are the proud owners of a neurotic dog, a delusional rabbit, an insecure parrot and two rocks on legs. We don’t get a lot of human visitors these days.

And the kids? The ones who declared on everything holy that I wouldn’t have to do a thing? That they would take care of the bird?

All I can say to that is: no more pets for Christmas.