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

mimicking the sounds that her
children had been making for the last 20 minutes and that I would
be stuck with those sounds for months. Indeed, 7 years later and he
still makes those sounds now and then.
    Most people didn’t know what kind of bird
Pickles was. Once, a lady leaned on the counter staring at him and
said “Soooo, what’s with the pigeon?” Pickles was often mistaken
for a pigeon. Usually, I was happy to answer questions about
Pickles and parrots in general but I was getting a little tired of
the same old questions, day in and day out.
    We were usually pretty busy in the shop but
there were some down times, especially during winter. I was making
most of Pickles toys by now and often assembled them in the shop
during slow periods. People started noticing and soon I was getting
requests to make toys for their birds. Before long, I had a little
side business going and a window display of bird toys for sale. I
was making a small income from it but it became time consuming and
I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. It was around this time that
Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and somebody posted on a bird
forum about all the lost and homeless parrots. Rescue centres were
begging for food and toys so I packed up almost all the toys I had
and shipped them down there. Since then, I still make toys but only
for Pickles and I’m back to enjoying it.
    All in all, Pickles was great company at work
and he was happy to entertain both us and our customers. It worked
out well and Pickles didn’t need to be left home alone all day,
every day. He’d get a little needy for attention on slow days and
demand to “Go for a walk”. So we’d pick him up, carry him around
the shop for a while then set him on top of a long display case in
the window where he could holler at people outside. Later on, after
learning how to bark, he would run back and forth barking at anyone
who passed. It was amusing to watch the double takes from people
who glanced in, expecting to see a dog. But all in all, he was
content to sit quietly and nap or preen when the shop was
empty.
    One time, Pickles was startled off his play
station when someone banged on the wall in the store next to us.
Now, Pickles didn’t realize that his flight feathers have grown in
enough for him to fly at will and after being startled, he took off
like a shot, banking and turning like a pro. I think he was as
shocked as I that he could be so air borne.
    His flight started off well, he soared all
the way to the other end of the shop, veering through the curved
aisle way and around the clothes rack, disappearing from my
sight.
    "Pickles?" I called, "Where are you?’ No
answer. "Pickles?" I call again. I hear a very strained little
voice from yonder saying "Huh?" Then silence. I go searching for
him and finally I hear a very quiet "Anybody home?" Good, his
answer narrows the search down a bit.
    I get to the end of the shop and can't see
him anywhere; I figure he would have landed on the floor somewhere
so I'm looking under the racks and shelving. As I stand there,
completely baffled and parrotless, I hear "Hello?" right next to my
ear. I turn and there's the little goof, hanging on a peg amidst
the dubbing materials on the wall. He's suspended upside down, with
his little red twinker up in the air. "Well, this is a fine pickle
you've gotten yourself into there Mr. Pickles. Need help?" I ask.
As he hung there like a bat, he replied meekly "Give a dog a bone."
The old saying immediately came to me, something like "throw a poor
guy a bone"; as in help the poor guy out.
    So I did. And as I was righting his majesty
up, I couldn't help but notice the grey fly tying material he had
landed on and realized that Pickles’ feathers would make a great
substitute! Not long after that, we developed a great fly with his
molted feathers and down and dubbed it the Pickle Fly. It caught
fish and it was in demand but unfortunately, there was a limit to
how many we could tie up as Pickles could only