Pretty Bird - Pretty Bird

Pretty Bird - Pretty Bird

Noel Laflin

7-22-17

Two things I dearly missed upon moving out from home long ago were a cuckoo clock and a pet parakeet. Funny how it was all about birds even way back then.

Consequently, I took care of both needs with my first paycheck.

The clock was already trained to talk on the hour and half hour - as long as one remembered to pull the weights up on a daily basis.

That parakeet was a slow learner, on the other hand, so I purchased a long-playing record called, 'Train Your Bird to Talk.'

Setting the needle's arm to replay, I figured that each simple phrase such as 'Hello, Hello, Hello,' or 'Pretty Bird, Pretty Bird, Pretty Bird,' etc. would repeat hundreds of times in an eight-hour day, thus allowing that parakeet to start conversing in no time while I was at work.

The plan might have worked had I not taken into account my roommate, Ed.

Somehow I'd overlooked the fact that he worked nights and slept days.

According to the hastily scribbled note I found upon my return home that evening - the one lying beside the smashed 'Train Your Bird to Talk' LP - he'd been having some troubling dreams about talking birds.