THE bird.

Growing up, my house was known by friends for many things. Things like it's big backyard pool, or our kitchen pantry's endless supply of junk food, and, of course, our overwhelmingly large number of pets. Fo realz. It was outrageous. All of us five kids at one point wanted to be veterinarians. And when you have 5 animal lovers, 2 push-over parents, and a big enough house to keep dozens of various mammels, reptiles, and rodents, your house turns into one big day at the zoo. We had dogs, cats, box turtles, water turtles, hamsters, bunnies, snakes, guinea pigs, and the animal I took particular interest in...birds. Why? I'm not quite sure. Being the youngest, I think it was the last animal we didn't own that I could pick out from the pet store. I wanted a pet all to myself. One that belonged to just me.

The first bird I ever owned was a cockatiel named Tillie. She was gray, with a yellow head, and orange cheeks. I vividly remember the day I picked her out of dozens of other birds at PetSmart. I recall moving my index finger back and forth against the glass cage as she followed it and jumped up and down as if she were chirping, "pick me! pick me!" So, I picked her. I was so excited to bring her home. Tillie was just about as awesome as a pet bird can get. She quickly learned to talk, sat quietly on your shoulder as you read, and loved all people. She would fly short distances from person to pseron, but we clipped her wings, so that was about the only flying she was capable of. However, she didn't seem to mind.

Typically cockatiels are supposed to live 10-15 years-old, but I only had Tillie for about a 2 years before she got sick and died. I buried her in my backyard among other graveyard family pets. My parents could tell I was upset and tried to make me feel better by buying me a new bird. A new cockatiel even. But this one was nothing like Tillie. She was white, bald, and just plain evil. Did you know birds can hiss? Well, mine could anyway. I swear this bird was a demon. I attempted to name that thing multiple times, but nothing seemed to suit it, so in time she just became known as, "the bird." We never got around to clipping the bird's wings, so it got pretty good at flying in circles. Landing, however, she never perfected. She would just fly in circles until she got too tired and ran into the brick wall to stop herself. She'd fall to the floor, and I would place her back into her cage. One time she fell into a mouse trap. Don't worry...it was only a glue trap. Though, I think she would have rather been killed than endured the hour following. My dad and I had to hold her under the kitchen faucet and wash her multiple times before we could get most of the glue off.


She was crazy from the day she broke out of her shell, but it became worse over time. She began to eat herself to the point where I could see her bones when she stretched her wings. Now, I promise you I was no cruel pet owner. I fed her, cleaned her cage, gave her fresh water, but that didn't seem to matter. Years later, she even starting laying eggs. EGGS! Dude, she had no mate. Now, what bird that's not from Satan lays eggs with nothing in them? How is that even possible? There were no baby birds growing in those eggs, but she protected them with her life. She would sit on them for hours, just waiting for them to hatch. I eventually took them to show them off to my 7th grade science teacher. He was fascinated.

I believe I was in third grade when I got "the bird." She just died last year. How that bird lived that long is beyond me. I was at college when my dad called me to tell me the news. The phone call went something like this...

Dad: "Hey Alex. I'm afraid I got some bad news."
Alex: "What happened?"
Dad: "Your bird died."
Alex: "Oh. That's all?"
Dad: "I'm sorry. What do you want me to do with her?"
Alex: "I don't know. What did you do with all of our other dead animals?"
Dad: "I'll bury her for you."
Alex: "Cool."

From now on, I'm sticking to dogs, and dogs only.

Miss Satan, herself.