My Quaker Parrot

Today, as if I'm not stressed enough, my daughter almost lost our little Polly. I say almost because little Polly gets spooked if we make sudden movements and goes into flight into the strangest places, probably where she feels safe. So, today, like many other days, my sweet little princess decides she's going to take Polly into her room to play with her. Well, little princess says she dropped her pail, yep pail, not box -- pail of crayons and Polly went flying.

I'm on my computer in my office when I hear a shrill cry..."Polly is gone!" Of course I'm thinking, dadgumit, the little not-so-princess anymore killed her! My heart is pounding a million beats a second, yes a second. I run to find the culprit at the bottom of the stairs with tears streaming down her face mumbling something about..she fell behind my chest of drawers and I moved it (wrong thing to do) and she's not there. Through the mind of a worried Polly master runs these horrible images of a squashed, bloody, very precious Quaker parrot. I don't want to look. I'm afraid to go in the stubborn child's room and discover what could be a very graphic scene of the crime.

I move the chest of drawers and feeling my heart as if it's going to pop right out of my chest, I look. No Polly. I call out her name -- silence. I fear for her life. Knowing Polly, I know she would come to me if she could. By now, I'm frantically looking for her and calling out her name, nothing. I give the Siamese cat an accusatory look. Siamese looks at me with the same look she gives me always as if to say, Human, don't bother me with such insignificant things. I'm a cat and I rule.

Crying like a child that has just lost her best friend I call Mr. Sir and tell him his offspring has very likely murdered our little Polly and I don't know if I can forgive that. He, knowing his spawn rather well, only adds to my fears by saying she probably hurt my Polly and won't admit to it and tells me to ask her for the truth. I do. She, crying loudly, proclaims she didn't hurt her and that she saw her fly behind the chest. My son hears me wailing and says he's going to lift the chest of drawers so as not to hurt her in case she's there. I told him I wouldn't watch -- just in case. He yells down the stairs that he found her! I tell him I don't want to look. He says, she's fine and has no idea how she could have survived being where she was...under the flat bottom of the chest of drawers!! I don't know what I would've done if my little Quaker had been killed.

Only a bird lover would understand. My Polly is precious to me, she talks, laughs, dances, sings, whistles and loves just being with us. She even plays with the Siamese and the Turkish Van kitties. Yes, you read right, a bird playing with cats. She's rather quiet right now -- choosing to take a nap atop her perch after much ado about nothing. She's probably wondering what her crazy master was wailing about. Somehow, I think she knows.