Tuesday, September 8, 2009

September 8, 2009: The Birds

The funniest thing in the neighbourhood.

While the Mooks are just mookin' around about the doctor's appointment tomorrow, I figured a nice change of tone is in order. So I'm going to talk about things I care about.

There is a hierarchy among pet people. At the top, of course, are those who have the wisdom to have dogs. Yes, we are slaves, but we are the élite of the slaves. Well below dog people are, as you have read in the past, cat people. Cat people are like their animals: inconstant, irresponsible, stupid. A dog is forever; apparently a cat is only until the next time you move and then you just chuck it into the alley and move onto the next apartment and cat. I have trouble with cats, needless to say. I was walking with Mook A in the alley behind out place and we ran into Cato Kaelin, the local loser and itinerant. Cato eats garbage, gets fed by a bunch of people on the street, eats birds and squirrels (I haven't seen this but since the summer began the populations of both species have substantially diminished) and is extremely territorial. He must be killed and I nearly got him. He was feasting on the fresh garbage put out for pickup and I approached. He did all of those fuckass crazy things cats do when they are pissed and A sighed and said to me, "I've had enough of that one...go for it." So, in hunter pose, I moved slowly toward the spitting, fat fuck. Well, it was then that A and I saw something in the fiend's eyes that announced the impending confrontation was not going to be a bloodless one and, worse, I would not necessarily win. Thankfully, A yanked me back ('cause I was now committed to the battle) and pulled me away and Cato went back to his eating.

Below cat owners are the owners of rodents: hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs and—especially—rats. These are, of course, vermin and anyone who keeps them clearly does a lot of masturbation.

At the bottom of the list are the owners of lizards, snakes and large insects and arachnids. This, my friends, qualifies as a pathology and requires treatment. And please, do not even mention turtles: if you're not three years old or in a special needs school, these don't even make the cut.

Now normally I don't have any time for birds but across the alley from us there is a young couple who own a cockatoo. Or rather, the bird belongs to the young man and the young woman tolerates it...sort of. The bird is so enamoured of his young master, that the guy can actually go outside onto the balcony and the bird remains on his shoulder, never even interested in flying off. When the bird is left alone, it entertains itself by imitating every sound it hears; the repertory I have heard so far includes dogs barking (a very good rendition, if I may say), babies crying and something that sounds like a donkey braying. All the babies and dogs seem to sing the melody whenever the bird sets off, but as there are no donkeys around, the bird solos this one.

What makes the bird particularly hilarious is the clear animosity between it and his mistress (who is not really his mistress, rather the lady his master is porking). When the young man is in the bird coos and clucks and says, "Hello! Hello! Hello!" When the master is out and the girl is alone with it, there seems to be a cold silence in their apartment or the bird will just make sounds which resemble nothing more than gibberish. Across the alley, where we are, it is riotously funny; in the kitchen with that bird, I imagine it is considerably less amusing. The girl moans, from time to time, "Please stop!" but there is nothing doing.

What was once disdain between them turned into open warfare, two days ago. The bird just got more irrational and loud in his noises and the girl finally lost it and shrieked, "Shut up!" I think the whole neighbourhood observed the deathly silence which followed and many of us must have wondered if the order for silence had not been followed by a little bit of ornithological homicide.

Then, quite suddenly, the bird shattered the silence with a scream so human, deafening and shrill that the young girl squealed in such a way that it was clear, first, that she had been terrorized and, second, that she had shat herself. The cockatoo then chuckled.

Now there is a master of his domain.

Meanwhile, on the subject of birds, the Mooks watched the movie of Sex and the City and He's Just Not That Into You, these last days, and I have to say: if these films reflect any kind of reality, women are sad, sad, sad and profoundly pathetic creatures.

No comments:

Post a Comment