In a sordid tale of animal intrigue and cunning too frightening and unreal to contemplate for long without descending into madness, an area parrot successfully sabotaged a festive extended-family gathering by shamelessly (although quite amazingly!) imitating the oven timer and thus causing the 21 pound holiday bird to be removed from the oven more than an hour early, thus spoiling the dinner showpiece and causing a run on the mashed potatoes and dinner rolls since undercooked turkey, as it turned out, is only truly appreciated by the family dog. "Well, you know how the holidays are! Everyone is a nervous wreck getting this done and that done" said the avid yet frazzled animal lover. "So, when I trusted the fickle whims of technology and set the oven timer on 6 hours, I never even gave a thought to the idea that I needed to be suspicious when the oven timer went off! I mean, can't we put our trust in anything at this point? And as for that doggone parrot, it is bad enough when he imitates those unfortunate noises (obviously more socially appropriate for the barnyard than the ballroom!) my brother-in-law all-too frequently makes (the man is indeed a phenomenon!) - and to provide that decidedly unwelcome mimicry almost without fail when our poor preacher comes over for coffee - but who would have guessed that they would use their 'other worldly' imitation skills to influence and shape (the word 'steer' might be appropriate here but one doesn't want to confuse animal groups at this critical conversational juncture!) our dietary preferences in such a purposeful and self-serving way? And who would have guessed long-nurtured and inherently ingrained bird loyalty would run so deep in - well - a bird?! I mean, just think of the forethought and pure evil genius of imitating the oven timer bell to ruin a turkey dinner - all to satisfy some animal-centric agenda based on some murky 'code of honor' completely outside the cultural grasp of the much touted 'homo sapiens'!" "On some level I am furious with that whole tragic series of events, but that fury is tinged somewhat with admiration and maybe even a touch of fear, too. It is just a shame that my mother-in-law was there. Now I will have to hear about this for years - decades even! Heck, if she has her way, it will be on my tombstone! I am still trying to live down that tiny piece of eggshell in an omelet I made in 1982!" she lamented! "Plus, now I know that I have to keep my eye on that doggone dog and that stupid parrot. I just can't help but feel that they were somehow in on this together - like some peanuts-for-turkey 'quid pro quo' or something! I have noticed that they have been spending a lot of time together since Thanksgiving! But surely they can't be co-conspirators in this, can they? But maybe that explains all of those slobber covered peanuts I have found around the birdcage. That whole relationship deserves further scrutiny, indeed!" she said wearily. "Anyway, I never really thought about it, but I guess it was a little insensitive of me to cook a turkey every year in a house full of parrots! That was just wrong! Next year we are having ham! Ham and maybe a beef roast or something. Now if I could just get that meddlesome parrot to quit imitating the ringing of the phone every 5 minutes I might be able to wind down from the stress-filled holiday season!"
(Editorial note: The parrot's ability to mimic sounds is amazing to the point that they can create sounds that appear to the human ear to be "more real' than the actual sounds themselves. Why they choose to make certain sounds at certain times remains a mystery (at least to the humble Lamont Blog!), but given the chaos-inducing nature of their quite considerable efforts, one must assume that there is a greater, more over-arching intelligence at work here - one whose motives we fail to understand at our own peril!)
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