Lucy

Last Thursday I went with Meg to pick Phillip up from his dad's place so we could go out for Chinese. We got a grand tour of the house. The house features two dogs, a cross-eyed cat, and several large tropical birds. The newest, and current favorite, of the house is a huge blue macaw named Lucy.

Phillip was scratching Lucy's head, and, animal-lover that I am, I went up to join him in the activity.

Lucy took a chunk out of my finger.

So I followed Meg, with my finger pouring blood from a parrot's dirty beak, into the bathroom. As I poured Listerine over the wound, since we couldn't find any peroxide, I remarked, "I don't love Lucy."

Later, just before we left, I went into the aviary to look at one of the other birds, and to demonstrate my lack of ill will. Lucy followed me, sat on the edge of her cage, and kept reaching out to bite at me, all the while saying, "Hello." I tried pretty-talking to her, but she just kept trying to bite. I had to get between her and the table, a very narrow space, to return to the kitchen. Pretty talk was ineffective.

I thought to myself, Screw you, parrot, and walked right up to her and stood over her. I made myself as tall as possible. I towered over her. I leaned in threateningly. I hissed. I glowered. I spread my arms out a little. I turned myself into a Really Big Bird.

Lucy got the message. She shrank down, stopped streching out her wings, and eyed me cautiously. I stared her down for awhile, and then proceeded back to the kitchen. Meg wanted to know if I'd won the pissing contest. I smiled and told her yes.

Meg told me later that she wouldn't have been at all surprised, when Lucy bit me, to have seen me reach out and snap her neck in two.

I must admit it was tempting. I'm going to have a nice ugly scar on my forefinger...right over one of my favorite scars, from the time I was cutting the metal ring off a glass bottle to make a decoration for my room, and the knife slipped. I liked that scar. It was graceful, elegant. Now it's going to be buried under a parrot scar.

But the parrot scar is cool. I got it from a parrot. I had to cut off a flap of skin when I got home -- it was a really nasty cut, and bird beaks are dirty -- and it's healing up, and will probably look awesome, in its own way.

But still. I don't love Lucy. The bird had no facial expressions at all, beyond that weird alien malevolence that tropical birds seem to bear. Give me finches, cardinals, robins, and chickadees any day. Hawks and owls are awesome too. But leave the macaws in New Zealand or wherever the hell they're from. Maybe they're happier on white sand.