Parrot

When I was in college I didn’t have a very high opinion of myself. I had created a profile on a dating site, and while all of the pictures I uploaded were of me, none of them looked like me.

After flirting for a while online with a guy named Terrance, we decided to meet. There weren’t too many options around my school, but we settled on a Burger King.

When I waited for him there I remember feeling self conscious about my jacket. I had gotten it at a Goodwill. Was I worried about the color or that I hadn’t washed it? I don’t know. Terrance walked in. He was tall, slender, elegant. I was immediately done for.

He told me “you look even better than your pictures.” I couldn’t trust it. I couldn’t stop laughing nervously. He asked about my work and I told him I had worked at a summer camp. ”kids are so great,” he said. “I don’t know, they’re crazy” I offered. I told him about how a tiny nine year old had found a tire as big as him, and had begged me for my blessing to let him roll down a steep hill inside of it. I declined, and when I turned away and looked back there he was, revolving about a thousand times per second in that old tire down that steep hill.

I dont remember much of what Terrance told me. I guess I wasn’t too interested in much besides the way his eyelashes curled or his jacket fell on his shoulders. After eating, we went to a pet store across the street.

That’s where we met the parrot. It was an ordinary parrot. I think maybe green. We tried to coax it into speaking. Again I couldn’t stop nervously laughing. ”That bird wants a piece of me” I said. ”That’s a weird thing to say” said Terrance.

we walked down the aisles to see if any reptiles were out and about in their glass tanks. Suddenly, Terrance received a phone call, or pretended to. It was a rug delivery, he told me hurriedly. He had to go and be at home, for the rug delivery.

So he left for the parking lot. I went back to look at the parrot again. Well, we’ll always have that parrot.