Chatty

Fran?

Fran, it’s Cyn.

CYN!

No, not your sister. Your cousin. You don’t have a sister. Are you drinking that grass drink I bought you at the store near my house?

Drink it, it’s good for you.

CYN!

Am I bothering you?

Well, I know it’s 4am, but I had a feeling you’d be up. Especially if I called you a few times. What was it--six?  Six times?  You should really answer your phone as soon as you hear it. It could be an emergency. I could be dead. Imagine if your cousin was dead and you didn’t even know it, because you were too busy sleeping?

CYN!  IT’S CYN!

I can’t sleep. This parrot has been talking my ear off all night.

My son got it for me.

Mikey, you remember Mikey? With the toes?

No, he never got them fixed. They’re just toes. What does he need his toes for? I mean, he still has them, they’re just--

No, that’s the parrot.

THE PARROT!

No, not CYN--THE PARROT!

It doesn’t have a name yet. My son calls it Chatty, but I’m not--

Listen, I don’t like it, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give it a stupid name. I’m not going to give it any name. Once you name something, you can’t eat it, and I might end up eating this thing if it doesn’t shut up.

My son got it for me, because he thinks I’m lonely.

Thirty-eight years I wait for my husband to die, and then he does, and it’s finally quiet, and now I got a parrot to worry about.

The talking I can get used to. Rob talked a lot too, and I learned to drone it out. I would pretend he was just the tv I left on in the other room. I can’t tell you the number of times I’d think to myself, My oh my, Wheel of Fortune sure is annoying tonight.

So go ahead and let Chatty chat, I’ll learn to live with it, but what I can’t live with is the singing.

It sings, Fran, it sings all night long.

Not CYN!  SINGS!

At first, I was all excited, because you know I love music. Who love Paul Anka more than me? Now, I wasn’t expecting the parrot to know Paul Anka, even though everybody does, but I thought maybe he’d sing something I know. Something catchy.

Instead, he started singing these dancing songs--No, not like Chubby Checker, not like that at all. More like--Well, it sounded a little...European, if you get what I mean.

It was all computerized sounding and too loud and every song went on for twenty minutes or more.

I called Mikey and he called the pet store, and it turns out, this parrot was raised in a club in Mykonos, which apparently, is in Greece. Remember the Greek guy that used to run that sandwich place we always said we were going to go to?

Well, he seemed nice, but this parrot?

He’s out of control.

Up all night, singing his music, bopping around, saying ‘Blow! Blow!’ over and over again.

I scream at him-- ‘What do you want?’ and he screams back ‘Blow!’

So I blow on his face, and he gets all mad at me, and I wanted to yell ‘I don’t know what you want!’ but what good is yelling at a parrot? It’s not his fault his brain is the size of a ping pong ball. Plus, he’s a male parrot, which means the ping pong ball probably has a few dents in it anyway.

Then, in the morning, if I go to throw up the blinds and let some daylight in, he hawks and squalls at me until I back away from the window, and then he sleeps until nine that night.

He’s got my sleep schedule all thrown off. And the worst part is, I’m starting to recognize some of the songs he’s singing.

There’s this one I think is called ‘Sky Nights (The Antonio Regalado Remix)’ or something like that. I tried to Shazam it, but Shazam doesn’t work with parrots, I guess.

So much for them being smart phones.

I had to change out all my lightbulbs, because Chatty only likes purple and blue lights. Took me seven colors to get it right. For one whole day, I had red bulbs in all the lamps, and I felt like I was living on Hoo-Hah Street. My neighbors must think now that Rob’s gone, I’m supplementing my retirement by turning my house into an underground rave club.

Last night, I was downstairs begging Chatty to drink some water, because his little feathers were soaked through with sweat, and while I wouldn’t mind if he dropped dead on me, I want it to be from natural causes, not from partying too hard in his cage.

I held the water dish up to his beak, and in between squealing ‘Do I look okay? Do I look okay?’ he cocked his little head, blinked twice, and--and he was looking right at me, mind you--he goes ‘You’re so beautiful.’

You know, Fran, I can’t tell you the last time somebody called me beautiful. Rob wasn’t the complimentary type. The closest he ever got to saying I looked nice was when he would slap me on the rear end when I brought him a Heineken during a Jets game.

But here was this little parrot.

This little, sweaty, high-on-life-and-maybe-a-few-other-things parrot--telling me I was beautiful.

And he kept saying it too. He said it at least ten or twelve times, and then he put a beat behind it, and the next thing you know, I’m opening the cage, and he’s flying around the room, and I’m dancing while he sings what I think was a cover of a Tears for Fears song. This was the middle of the night, and right there, in the middle of my living room, covered in purple and blue light, I thought to myself--

Wow, I would love to do some cocaine right now.

COCAINE!

Oh, don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, Fran. I don’t remember what I ate for breakfast this morning, but I remember 1976 like it was yesterday.

Mikey told me he’s going to find a new home for Chatty and get me a Pomeranian instead. I told him he better work fast, but the truth is, the more time I spend with Chatty, the more I’m wondering if I should just keep him. He’s getting better with his pitch, and some of his mixes are really transcendent.

It’s like I said, Fran, you can get used to just about anything.