A little over 2 years ago, I adopted my mentor and friend's parakeets. Her daughter had just taken in a kitten who would not leave the poor birds alone, so she was looking for a good home for them--a 4 year old male and a 2 year old female. He's blue, and she's mostly white with some blue. Naturally, he's named (or was) Blueberry, while her name is Sky. I've had parakeets before, so I know how to take care of them and it's not really difficult. Except like every other critter in this house, they're not normal. Except for the fact that they fight like an old married couple constantly--complete with her nagging him every chance she gets. It finally got to the point where they had to be moved outside my bedroom downstairs because he learned if he starts flitting around the cage, the dog runs up to the cage barking and smacks the cage with her paws, scaring the hell out of Sky. Normally, I wouldn't mind it too much except my hamster resides on top of their cage, so it's not fair to her to be woken up so rudely several times a day. (Did I mention he'll do this just to piss Sky off randomly throughout the day as well? Well, he does.)
So until the back room is cleaned out enough for them to be moved, they're down here. It's not really that bad and they're usually pretty quiet, save some chatting and other normal noises. Hardly any fighting. One of them has even taken to devising an alarm system for when my dog tries to sneak down stairs. They tap one of their bell toys in the cage only once to let me know someone (or something) is trying to sneak down the steps. That took me about a week to realize what he or she was doing. (I can't see who's doing it, so I'm not sure.)
Then Blueberry started getting a bit sneaky himself. He started escaping from his cage. I'd open the door to change their food or water and all he'd need is a 2 second window and off he'd go. The first 2 times, he'd flit around my office singing before landing on the window sill and start chuckling and laughing at me. Seriously. Why? Because I have a pile of boxes and other storage items under the windowsill that I can't climb or move out of the way to reach him. Real funny, huh? I guess if you weren't the one in pain, having difficulty moving, trying to catch a smartass parakeet who is laughing at you. I finally lure him out and after a few more attempts, I catch him. He's escaped a few more times after that and the same results. He finds a spot I can't reach, laughs, I curse, he laughs harder, he flits around knowing I won't risk hurting him, laughs some more, until he's caught and returned to his cage. So I renamed him Asshole. And he responds to it. Especially after today. Usually he flits around my office. Today he decided to do a bit more exploring. A few laps around the office and right into my bedroom he goes (which is on the other side of my office wall, separated by an interior window with a 30 gallon fish tank. I turned the ceiling fan off, warned my mom to keep the dog out of the basement just in time for him to come BACK into my office, but didn't see where he landed. So now Asshole is not only loose in the basement, he's MIA. I grab my cigarettes, lighter, ashtray, and settle down at my desk, figuring he has to come out eventually. I had my towel ready to catch him. He flew right back into my room and perched himself on the fish tank light, right where I couldn't get him. There wasn't enough room to catch him and odds are, I'd of accidentally knocked him into the tank, since there's no cover for it. And he's sitting there, arrogant and yes, laughing. And there I am at my desk spewing every insult and curse I can think of at him.
Mom asks what the hell is going on and I explain the situation. She suggests I block off his escape route into the office, get him into my room and catch him when he lands. He did fly into my room, all right. Except he flew right out my door and right. up. the. stairs. And of course into the storage room with about 3 feet of crap on the floors and an 8' closet with a shelf on top that we can't reach. (Did I mention during his flight up the stairs he was STILL laughing?) So mom covers the doorway, I grab the fishing pole, hand mom the towel, and being careful not to step on anything in case he's hiding under any of it, try to force him off the top of the closet. Turns out he's in the corner on a shelf. He couldn't control laughing at us, the asshole. I finally managed to catch him (and a sliver of glass in my foot) and the towel suddenly stopped moving. Uh oh. I was afraid I'd killed him by accident or he gave himself a heart attack with all that flying.
So I slowly unwrapped the towel to check on him, but he buried himself pretty good. Just as I got a glimpse of blue feathers, I heard that evil chuckle and he was off--AGAIN. The asshole was just playing dead! I finally sent him flying in mom's direction, just as I managed to step on another piece of glass when she caught him (but she was NOT about to fall for the playing dead routine again). She brought him back to his cage (which was open the whole time and Sky never once tried to escape since she's afraid of being out of the cage) and as she's unwrapping the towel and blocking any way for him to escape, he's trying to bite her repeatedly! And he wonders why I renamed him Asshole... So it looks like in addition to a new water bottle for the hamster, it looks like I'm going to have to find a feeder and water bottle that I can change from the outside of their cage, since his only saving grace when he decided to check out the upstairs today was the fact that the mutt was outside. Had she been inside during his little escapade, things could have gotten real ugly, real fast for all of us.
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