I have always known that I have a mortal fear of snakes and now apparently I have the same tolerance for parrots. I found this out the other day while I was working at a clients house. I've never been a fan of parrots, and actually I don’t discriminate against any bird. I pretty much dislike all shapes and forms that they come in, but specifically parrots remind me of some freaky prehistoric era leftover that looks like it is going to attack you with it’s freakish beak, beady eyes and velociraptor claws. I went to Maui with a girl friend back in 2001 and she insisted that we stop off at a road side tourist trap where you take pictures with 15 parrots and needless to say, I stayed in the car while she posed with the little flying freaks. I also think people who own birds are weird (sorry, I do) and I always request full disclosure when entering a house with birds.
With that said, I was not prepared for this client’s house. The whole reason for going to the house made it a bit of an interesting day; we were going to inventory and gather information on a deceased client’s estate for probate. It is really strange to rummage through a dead persons belongings, even more so, to do so in their house. So I was a bit precarious about going in the first place. Despite the fact that I deal with death on a daily basis, dealing with it behind a desk is much easier than actually being surrounded by it. As soon as I entered the house we were greeted with the loudest, ear bleeding squawk that no one should ever be privy to hear, and in a matter of zero to three seconds, I lost my cool calm exterior and transformed into a tense paranoid idiot. Shortly thereafter the daughter entered the room holding a long stick with the ugliest, scariest, loudest, green ball of freakish feathers perched on it. Still squawking.
Daughter: “Oh, he’ll be fine, we just woke him up. Would you guys like to pet him, but becareful he may bite, he bites me all the time.”
My head: “Get that thing away from me.”
Bird: “I smell fear and will chase you around the house. Sqqquuuuaaawwwkkk”
Apparently the “home office” where we needed to gather documents also served as the birds room. It did not have a cage, but rather roamed freely around the entire house. Needless to say, my productivity was at an all time low mainly because the parrot decided to be my shadow. I would move to one side of the room, the bird would too. I would move into the living room, the bird would too. No matter where I went, the bird followed. It would also climb up the chairs (biting on the chair and using its velociraptor claws) to get on top of the table so he could have eye contact with me. By all definitions, this bird was stalking me. He probably got some sick satisfaction out of repeating “hello!” and watching me jump and run each time he did. When the bird was not near me, I was constantly looking over my shoulder waiting for it to sneak around the corner only to chase me into another part of the house. I participated in this song and dance for almost 2 hours and on our way out, he bit my boss’ toe and chased us out the door.
By the time I got back into the office my chest hurt from being so tense. My boss, despite being viciously attacked, thought the thing was cute and said that she wished we could have a bird or a dog in our office. I kindly and rather quickly suggested that a dog would be much more enjoyable and less stressful.
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