I now know what Alfred Hitchcock was talking about...

Don’t be fooled by the innocent, wide-eyed look she’s giving you. This is the devil himself, reincarnated to give me hell. And I’m doing everything I can to send him back where he belongs. (Not really, but didn’t that sound so dramatic?!) This is Bird. Yes, this is her name. Pops originally named her Dragoon, but dude, that’s like the lamest thing I’ve ever heard, so I just called her Bird, and after a while, it stuck, and that’s all she’ll answer to now. Ha ha, I say to those who named her. Clearly, I’m better.
We got this little devil for my mom for Christmas years ago. (I don’t remember the exact number. It’s been like 6 or something, I think) When we got her, everyone was excited for the possibility of her talking. Which, being an African Grey parrot, she should be doing a lot, they told us. The two of us didn’t really hit it off, for one specific reason. She likes to bite people, and I don’t like to be bit. Automatically, this makes us not compatible. One day, close to when we first got her, I was in the same room as her, talking on the phone (with my older sister) when all of a sudden, I don’t even remember being particularly close to the bird, but she just up and bit my face out of nowhere. Naturally, I very calmly got off the phone and summoned my sister to come help me. Ok, that’s a lie. After I felt the blood pouring out of my face, I screamed into the phone, (sorry, Katja) hung up, and screamed for Rory to come up to me. (That poor girl was asleep in her room downstairs, but luckily, she awoke at my banshee cries) We looked at my face, determined it didn’t look right, and called for outside help. (Dad) He told us it was probably a good idea to get it checked out, so we went to the doctor, straightaway. They ended up having to put a stitch in my face, on my upper lip. And I got that with no anesthetics. That’s right, I’m a tough person. But I got over that after a while, and thought that Bird and I could be friends.
Boy was I wrong. Ever since then, she has been proving my forgiveness wrong, tormenting me. She is a huge fan of biting me every chance she gets. I’ll be sitting there, looking through the pantry for cereal, and she will all of a sudden jump on my back out of nowhere! I’ll be sitting in the kitchen, reading, minding my own business, and she’ll just jump onto me, and it’s hard to get her off. Those stupid claws are so pointy and they scratch me up like nobodies business. And I’ll be doing a crossword puzzle (I mean word search) and she’ll grab my pen and then it’s like a tug of war to get it back! And she is so noisy, half of the time she’s making noise, its all gibberish that I’m sure she thinks is real words, but all she’s doing is disrupting things. She does talk really well though, just not when you want her to, of course. Oy vey.
But, not everything about her is bad; I’ll give her that much credit. It is fun when she learns something I’ve been trying to teach her. It takes a while, and you have to do it often while she’s learning, but it pays off when she does it. I taught her how to wolf-whistle after I say “How do I look?” which is just a confidence booster for me. She’s pretty good at imitating things, so she imitates cell phones and ringing phones, and sometimes she’ll make a phone ring (she’ll ring like one) then she’ll answer it, and have a mini-conversation, it’s actually pretty funny. She does this little side-stepping thing when she thinks she’s being sneaky, getting near me. Before I move away from her, of course I’m not getting bitten again. She “pumps iron” with pens, and sometimes she throws temper tantrums. Which I know shouldn’t be funny, but come on. A tiny bird getting mad at being left alone? That’s pretty funny. I do think it’s awesome when she imitates me. She can do my laugh perfectly, including the claps I add when I laugh really hard. (I never really knew how I laughed until I heard her, now I’m kind of embarrassed) She’ll dance with me when there’s music on, bops up and down, and sometimes adds her own rhythm by way of claps and stuff. I guess all in all, we get along, but she always has to watch herself, before I’ll take her out. And believe me, nobody will ever find the body…