Pickles The Parrot: A Humorous Look At Life With An African Grey Read Online Free

than he expects,
I yell from my bed, “Cawwwwfee” and he gets it ready for me. I
don’t deserve that man.
    One morning, I heard the usual singsong call
for coffee so I got up, went to the washroom then sat myself down
at the computer and reached for my coffee. But there is no coffee.
What the heck? Then I hear “Good morning!” and I look through the
window between the kitchen and living room and there’s Pickles,
hanging on the cage bars with one talon and waving at me with the
other. “Want out. Want some breakfast”. I look past the cage and
there’s Neil, sound asleep on the couch. It had been Pickles
calling“Cawwwfeeee”I
    Neil’s voice. Not only had he called me for
coffee but he’d also made the tinkling sound of the stirring
spoon.
    Pickles has fooled Neil too. If Neil’s in
another room, Pickles will call out as if it’s me in bed, calling
for coffee. He does it quietly, as if it’s coming from down the
hall and behind the bedroom door. I don’t know how many times Neil
has opened the bedroom door and told me my coffee’s getting cold
when I was still sound asleep.
    Pickles had become a constant source of
entertainment and a wonderful companion. We seldom kept him caged,
preferring to interact with him most of the day. His wonderful
sense of humor always left you wanting more and we were happy to
include him in all family activities.
     
     

Chapter 2
     
    Pickles Goes to Work
     
    Right from the beginning, Pickles accompanied
us to the fly shop most days. It had always been the plan to have
him there with us because we worked almost every day and since
Pickles seemed to have settled in quite nicely, we felt a change of
scenery would be fine for him. As it turned out, Pickles was in his
glory. Since he loved people, he seldom bored of all the
interaction from customers. It was obviously the reason he learned
to talk so quickly—the more he talked, the more he could abuse
everyone who walked in the door.
    Within the first few days of being at the
shop, he started making the sound of the phone ringing and
answering with “Logan Lake Fly Shop.”
    In the beginning, Pickles was placed on a
wooden cross made of branches, which were held up with a Christmas
tree stand. It was soon apparent that this just wouldn’t do. He was
bored and constantly sliding down to the floor where he could be
easily trampled by customers, or us. In the next few months, there
were a series of set-ups for him until we settled on a cage
surrounded by branches that were drilled into the walls. This gave
him a play station with lots of hanging toys and the cage was where
he went to sleep or eat. He was never locked in the cage unless we
had to leave briefly for lunch or supplies. Pickles was usually
clipped and seldom flew except a little when he was startled and
even then, he basically dropped like a rock.
    Within a few weeks, Pickles had developed
quite the talking ability. Within months, that ability exploded. He
knew that the more he spoke, the more attention he got. He was
shooting for the center of the universe.
    While owning and operating a fly shop, a
large part of our job was to provide fishing reports and
suggestions on what type of flies are most effective at the time.
There are literally thousands of different variations and names of
flies but the only one Pickles learned during all the time he spent
in the shop, was the "Woolly Bugger". A popular fly and spoken a
lot in the store so Pickles picked up on it up right away,
obviously thinking what a cool sound. Perfectly understandable. All
the other popular flies were boring words such as Mayflies,
Damsels, Dragonflies etc.
    At first, he only liked the 'bugger' part of
the name so it was inserted into everything, such as Hello bugger,
it's raining like a bugger, poop on the bugger, daddy bugger, eat
your bugger supper, knick-knack patty whack give a dog a
bugger.”
    Finally he started saying the whole name and
when customers jokingly ask, "What's working Pickles?"