Gay Parrots
I’ve got nine birds. A couple of budgies, four cockatiels, and a few others. They all share a former bedroom in my house. I’ve also got a chicken. I’m boarding her in my basement until some new digs are move-in ready at a friend’s farm, just outside of town. All but the chicken are rescues. All have issues that have led them to living complicated lives, not all of them injury-related. Most of them can’t fly very well. One is missing most of one leg. Three were confined to hellish conditions for God knows how long, courtesy of a bird hoarder. (http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=9330387) Two were almost meals for feral cats. Despite being messy and at times expensive to maintain, I love each and every one of them dearly, and honestly feel blessed to have them in my life.
One of my cockatiels was a former boarder at a local pet store. She is missing about half of her feathers, blind, and probably about twenty-five years old. Friends managed to talk her former owner into letting me adopt her, following a few guilt-tripping sessions based on the extended stays at the shop, where she was stuck in her cage for weeks at a time and clearly felt miserable.
I guess because of this adoption, these same friends started dropping hints about a pair of handsome Amazon parrots, also being boarded there. But while the cockatiel’s “vacations” often lasted weeks, the Amazon pairs’ stays typically lasted months. And they also seldom ventured out of their cages, which, as you can imagine, is pure torture for such clever birds, accustomed, as they are, to spending their days in a large aviary.
I soon discovered that the owners of the parrots have a lot of money, travel a lot, and also have a macaw, which is boarded elsewhere and for not nearly as long as his aviary-mates. As it turns out, and is often the case, one of the owners of the birds isn’t nearly as fond of the Amazons as he is the macaw. So the macaw gets preferential treatment.
Another discovery: the birds’ owners are two gay men. And under ordinary circumstances, this wouldn’t matter. Nor should it. But it does here because Amazon parrots, like most of their species, are incredible mimics. My neighbor once had one for years, and when it “vocalized,” it sounded just like him. Well, these two Amazons also sound just like their owners, whom — as I said — are two gay guys. Two rather flamboyantly gay guys, I hasten to add. So the parrots sound like, well…. Get the picture? And not only do the two birds sound gay (imagine almost lispy stereotypes here) but they have also latched onto the couples’ musical tastes, which include their renditions of — and I’m not kidding — opera parts and Broadway show tunes.
All of which presents me with a potential dilemma, if and when the Amazons are offered to me for adoption. In addition, that is, to space and cost concerns, which are also very real. Okay. Here goes:
I’m a divorced man, living alone, in a house that I own. I’m not dating now, but I haven’t ruled it out in the future yet completely. I’m clean, in decent shape, sort of groomed. If I were to adopt these two gay-themed Amazons, what would a prospective girlfriend think? If I were to introduce them to her, would she find it all amusing? Once I told her their back story, would she believe me? Or would she think I’m covering something up?
Sure, I admit: Odds are, the birds won’t end up here; but the chick pickings in rural America are slim because most are heavy, and I need to do all I can to increase my market share out there in the dating world. I don’t need a couple of “gay parrots” creating misgivings in the minds of potential future Mrs. Jankowskis. No sir!
Too bad their owners aren’t lesbians instead.
