6:43 p.m. - 2004-08-04
My Poor Little Cockatiel

My Poor Cockatiel

When I come home from work, my usual routine is to head right for my computer and check my email and d-land and after a bit, I make dinner. My pet cockatiel, Alex, has his cage in the computer room and since he is alone all day, he really looks forward to my coming in there.

The last week and a half, I have been trying to do that Slim Fast routine....only instead of drinking the can of gunk, I bought the meal bars. The one for breakfast goes down ok and holds me, but the lunch bar doesn't do much for me and my stomach starts groweling ravenously from about 11 Am until 4:30 when I get home from work.

The other day, I came in the door and went right to the kitchen to make dinner. I couldn't stand it anymore and had to eat something. My poor Alex was screetching his hello screetch over and over again trying to get me to come into his room. After about an hour, he went into a total birdy coniption fit and went flying off around the room wildly, not looking where he was going. He flew at full speed into the window and hit the window latch with his little yellow forehead.

He landed on the ground and I ran in and picked him up. He just stood there on my hand shaking and making a funny, rythmic, peep...peeep....peeep noise while he twitched his head and one wing. I looked on his little forehead and there was a giant....bird eye...sized gash on his little forehead, bleeding. I could barely look at him and figured that there must be internal bleeding and that he would take the rest of the night to die while I had to watch. I put him in his cage and closed the door, because he was still trying to fly around and kept falling on the floor. I talked to him a little while he hissed and hissed at me and then left the room to let him calm down.

I kept checking on him and he still wasn't dead, and figured that in the morning I would find the poor thing at the bottom of his cage. The next morning, I poked my head into his room and I heard his familiar, chipper, "pretty little birrrrrrrrdy" noise he makes. A bit later he whistled "Shave and a haircut...two bits." and a while after that, he gave his reflection the wolf whistle. He is back to his old self and acting normally but I think I need to rename him.....Cyclops.

P. I. Yarnsmith

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