And Another One Bites the Dust...

And Another One Bites the Dust…

It was two years ago when I was offered two little parakeets from a local woman in town. She felt she didn’t have enough time for them. So, me being the budgie fan that I am graciously agreed to take in the two elderly parakeets.

It was that very day I drove down and there sitting in the cage I met two very distinct personalities. The little teal colored one had been named Percious, Percy for short. It’s thin façade gave reckoning to the fact that his cage mate was more than just a little bit pudgy. Sitting on the perch was the fattest little blue parakeet I have ever seen in my life. With a glint of terror in his eye he looked back up at me and I knew this bird was going to be something! His name was Thalia.

Now Thalia had a bit of a dilemma at the moment. For seven years he had a gender identity crisis, being named after a girl this clearly male bird had no sense of dignity left! However little he had he used to bully poor Percy. Percy was not thin because he wanted to be, Percy was thin because Thalia would spend untold hours guarding the food dish. Even with three food dishes in the cage Thalia still managed to keep Percy in typical Barbie condition!

When I brought these two little buggers home I didn’t think much about it. But I had decided to separate the two for just a little while until I could fatten Percy up. Now, Percy at first loved his new cage. He gorged himself and steadily gained back his weight despite being called “a little shriveled old man” by one of my dear friends.

Eventually Percy learned how to get out of his cage and he longed for Thalia’s companionship so badly that he’d go back to Thalia’s cage and attempt to break in. At this point I figured what was the harm in letting them live together again? That was the one question that to this day will haunt me!

Into the same cage they went. Thalia being the cheeky bully that he was made his little nagging sound and chased Percy around the cage until he got so exhausted he couldn’t. Being so overweight you see made Thalia just a tad unfit. I never had to clip his wings simply because he was so heavy he’d just plummet to the floor if he ever attempted flight!

Percy being the supposable smart and quick one kept his weight up but Thalia hated his guts. He was the rudest little bird you could ever imagine at this point. And so the fighting began. Thalia would some how manage to rip out feathers of his companion, obviously mad that his old cage mate hadn’t morphed into a girl in the short time he was gone.

So I decided to separate them, but it was early morning and I had to go out as all people do. When I came back that day to my horror lay poor Percy stiff and dead as a doornail. His eyes had been neatly gouged out as you could clearly see and there was no other signs of what may have killed him. Feeling dreadfully guilty I buried poor Percy in the back yard and went to find a Percy imposter. This was so I could say that Percy was still alive, I’d name this new bird Percy so I wouldn’t be technically lying.

It had only been two months since I had the birds when I saw the woman’s husband and you wouldn’t believe what came out of his mouth!

“So how’s the birds? Dead yet?”

I sat there silent as 'another one bites the dust' played loops in my head.

My mother, mortified only exclaimed in her best enthusiastic manor “They’re fine! Eating well!”

I sat there thinking to myself. Yeah, Percy’s just eating dirt that’s all!

That little problem dealt with we continued our search for a Percy imposter. Low and behold, we went to every pet shop we could find and we found every color of parakeet imaginable except any aqua-teal ones! Going to a breeder was out of the question as at the time we knew of no one around that bred small birds, just medium and large parrots!

Finally we just gave in, bought a nice little florescent yellow bird and named her Apollo. I got a female as I suspected Thalia might kill another male cage mate. And every one knows there is nothing worse than a serial killer budgie!

We brought dear sweet Apollo home and put her in Thalia’s cage. That day my friend, who was previously terrified of Thalia even before the Percy incidence looked up at his cage and said to Apollo “Stay away from him! He’s an evil eye gouger! He’ll kill you when your sleeping!!”

Despite the warning, my mellow yellow bird became best buds with Thalia. But I supposed I cursed Apollo when I gave him a masculine name, as it became evident a few months later she was he!

Now two years later, Apollo is in perfect health and Thalia is still hanging on! Thalia was given a female cage mate to see if they’d lay some eggs but Lady as of now is snubbing all of Thalia’s desperate attempts. She obviously has no taste for an old geezer like Thalia, whom by all reports is older than dirt and probably shouldn’t be alive right now! We highly suspect he sucked the life out of poor Percy to take as his own.

All and all, I think every one here loves Thalia, he’s just that nagging little character that looks up at you with this glint of horror in his eyes and smirking through the bars of his cage. To this I hope he lives to be 20!