A parakeet, a vacuum, and tough lessons.
"...he opened the cage door and came walking through the bedroom door..."
The Late Pretty Boy
One of my favorite pets growing up was a parakeet (green with black and gold markings) named “Pretty Boy.”I purchased him when I was in the seventh grade. He was so much fun until he had a life changing moment; he became the victim of road cage rage. For some reason he became mean as a rattlesnake. When I would change his water, food or clean the bottom of the cage, he would try to bite me; this he did on many occasions. Finally, I started cleaning his cage with the end of the vacuum cleaner hose, so I didn’t have to have my full hand in the cage. I know you think you know where this is going, but probably not completely. I was cleaning the cage one day with the vacuum hose and he managed to bite me. Thinking I would teach him a lesson by putting the hose close enough to him to shake him up, my distance calculations were a bit off and it sucked him up the hose. Fortunately, I turned the vacuum off quick enough that it didn’t kill him, but rather he was able to back out of the hose. Who can blame him for being somewhat emotionally disturbed! Well, when I went to college, I gave him to my grandmother, Mamma Grace. She fell in love with Pretty Boy, and he seemed to like her; however, I think the vacuum experience might have jumbled his neurons. One evening, as my grandmother was sitting on the edge of her bed talking on the phone, he opened his cage door and came walking through the bedroom door on the floor. Slowly he walked up to her. When he got to her feet, he flew up to her shoulder and bit her on the neck (no kidding). Somehow, he lived to be about eleven years old.
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