Head over Tiels

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Tickling Feathers 

The funny pages

Someone once asked me "How many birds can a person with a full time job handle?" "How do I know it when it has gotten out of control?" Since then, I've asked myself the same question as I spend countless hours "working the birds". So, I've come up with a quick list that will allow you to assess your involvement with your birds. If you can relate to more than ten of these situations you may be in over your head. Read and enjoy.

You know you have too many birds for too long…

1) when your idea of a quite evening at home changes from a bottle of fine wine and candlelight to a bottle of Pedialyte and a Vita-Lite.

2) when you rush out to buy your vanity license plates because you're convinced that "INDIGO-BUNTING" might already be taken.

3) when you become so friendly with your veterinarian that you go bowling together on Friday nights.

4) when you undress at night and collect enough seed hulls from inside your "undies" to mulch your vegetable garden.

5) when your favorite food switches from a medium-rare filet mignon to a well-done hard boiled egg.

6) when you family eats 99-cent pesticide-laden lettuce but your birds get the "Certified Organic".

7) when an eye surgeon spends an hour removing a half a cup of seed hulls from beneath your eyelids.

8) when you have two copies of your daily newspaper delivered because one is not enough to line your cage trays.

9) when you feel less "comfy" on a therapeutic mattress than you do on a circular bale of hay.

10) when you try to auction your dirty bird papers as "fine examples of conceptual art".

11) when one house fly in the pantry "grosses you out", but it's perfectly OK to have live mealworms in your refrigerator.

12) when your spouse wakes up only to see you sleeping with your head tucked under your armpit.

13) when you are well known in the art community for your cuttlebone scrimshaw.

14) when you can reliably close-band a strawberry finch baby while mud wrestling.

15) when you start pre-chewing breakfast for your children.

16) when there is nothing left to do in the bird room but you go back in just to make sure they are still there.

17) when, without your spouse being aware, you legally change your family's surname to "Finch".

18) when you describe the shape of a Border Canary as "kinda sexy".

19) when you start sweeping the bird room by grasping the broom handle with both feet.

20) when you actually believe that newly hatched finches look beautiful.

21) when you need to replace the bird room HEPA filter each night before bedtime.

22) when your UPS deliveryman, now with the hernia, refers to you as "the jerk that keeps getting bird seed delivered".

23) when you bathe with your finches.

24) when you have joined so many bird listservers that your 2-gigabyte hard drive fills each day with emails.

25) when you hire a cleaning service to clean your house because you hate it so much but you don't mind scraping poop off of perches for two hours.

26) when you spouse greets you at the door dressed in nothing but Saran Wrap and you say "not tonight dear, I need to add egg food to the babies' cages".

27) when you send your children off to school with egg food and veggie sandwiches.

28) when you find it pleasurable to breathe in feathers.

29) when you have enough "white dust" in your house to use as fake snow on your Christmas tree.

30) when your angry spouse tells you that they would rather that you have an extramarital affair than add one more birdcage to the living room.

31) when you ask your ABBA sales rep "How much for a cubic yard of grit?"

32) when you enter your bird room as a brunette and exit with gray hair.

33) when you accidentally diaper your infant in newspaper.

34) if your children prefer collecting feathers to Pokemon.

35) when you are fairly sure you can convince your HMO to pay for the invermectin.

36) when you put both of your children in one bedroom because you "need space to expand the bird room"

37) when you try to seduce your spouse by combing your hair forward, fluffing up your pajamas, and jumping up and down on the bed.

38) when you are so afraid to leave the birds with someone else, that your annual vacation consists of one weekend.

39) when that weekend vacation is spent in someone else's bird room.

40) when the most common phrase uttered by your family is "he's in the bird room"

P.S. I think I have too many birds!

Michael Marcotrigiano
Montague, Massachusetts
michael@exoticfinches.com

Behavioral Issues

Annoying/Embarrassing Habits ----

1. Even if it is fun, it's not nice to whistle for the dog and laugh at him when he comes (repeatedly).
2. Humans who wear glasses need them. I will not insist on attempting to remove every pair I see.
3. I shall cease doing my loudest scream in my humans ear right after I have snuggled up on her neck making kissing sounds and whispering I love you's into her ear. I also will not laugh my evilest laugh when she winces in pain and sits there with a dazed look on her face until she can hear again.
4. I will be consistent in my behavior. I will not step up one time and bite the next -- at least without SOME visible cue as to what I have planned. (But it sure is funny to keep her wondering!)
5. I will hold still when I am being photographed.
6. I will not acquire an attitude because my human filed my toenails and refuse to be touched, fed, etc. for days. I know she is just saving her shoulders.
7. I will not act like I want to step up politely for my human's future mother-in-law, then morph  to full battle-cockatoo mode and attempt to bite her at the last possible second.
8. I will not beg by hanging upside down with my wings outstretched at dinner.
9. I will not bite my human when she is holding me and her children come near us.
10. I will not bite my human's children when she is holding me and they dare to come near.
11. I will not bite my human's fingers while s/he's trimming my nails.
12. I will not bob my head and laugh when misfortune befalls my humans and they trip or drop things, nor will I fly over and circle above their heads and shriek wildly to add to the melee.
13. I will not climb in my human's hair when I have to go back in my cage.
14. I will not climb on top of my cage whenever the opportunity arises and dare my human to get me down.
15. I will not come in the cat door and scare both feline and human family members to death by startling them.
16. I will not do the mating dance on my human's father's hand. (My father thought that he was dancing, so I had the embarrassing task of explaining the birds and the bees to him. Not a happy role reversal!)
17. I will not drop my treats through the mesh in the cage bottom and then beg for another one (20 times in a row!)
18. I will not escape and hide in the valance and refuse to come when called, making my owner fear I'm dead somewhere in the house.
19. I will not fall into a dark corner I can not get out of then remain silent so my human can not find me.
20. I will not fly back and forth over my human's daughter who is afraid of me.
21. I will not fly down from the top of my cage then hide. This makes my human afraid that the cat, dog, or bigger bird have eaten me.
22. I will not fly into my human's friend's mouth (This is a parakeet.)
23. I will not give my human kisses one second and next second give her the beak of death.
24. I will not hang myself in my play ring to horrify unsuspecting guests then laugh and get out of the ring myself when they run over to help.
25. I will not ignore my new expensive play toys.
26. I will not interrupt the humans when they are imitating nature by making my female human's noises, which cause's them to laugh and get out of the mood.
27. I will not indicate that I am finished with my snack by flinging my dish as far as possible.
28. I will not land on people's shoulders unexpectedly and scare the !$#!& out of them.
29. I will not land unannounced on someone's head, scaring the daylights out of him/her.
30. I will not look high and low to locate a dried poop and then conspicuously chew on it to just to annoy my human and then fly off to make her come after me to take it away.
31. I will not mimic the phone ringing when my human is talking to her friends outside, or in another room, to get me back in the house or room where I am, and then laugh when she comes in.
32. I will not perch on the top of my human's glass and dip my head way down in a take a drink (also leaving a little of what I ate last).
33. I will not play King Kong by hanging on the side of the budgies' cage. I am a macaw, not a gorilla.
34. I will not put my head down to be scratched then whirl around and bite.
35. I will not refuse to come to my human when she calls me nicely, then do The Charge of the Avenging Macaw across the top of my cage so I can bite her when she turns to leave.
36. I will not say "f-you" to everyone who comes into the house.
37. I will not scare senior citizens to death by flying on their heads and chewing on their jewelry.
38. I will not sit on my human father's shoulder as he is about to lecture my human and begin the preamble of the lecture for him.
39. I will not sit perfectly still, making visitors think that I am a stuffed macaw, then when they get close enough, flap my wings and scream at them loud enough to make them wet their pants.
40. I will not take a bath in the fresh drinking water my human just gave me.
41. I will not tattle on the kids when they aren't even home.
42. I will not tell the nice policeman to "BITE ME" when my human is stopped for speeding. (Fortunately he had a sense of humour!)
43. I will not wait until my human has walked outside the house to start fights with my birdy brother inside my human's shirt while we both scream and bite at anything indiscriminately, causing my human to bounce around and scream at us to "cut it out", in front of company and the rest of the neighborhood.
44. I will not want to go to sleep at 1:30 in the morning and wake up at 5:00 in the morning.
45. I will not wolf whistle at the neighbor, when she garden's in her green bikini.
46. If I get mad at my human for whatever reason, I will not deliberately click the buttons that activate the burglar alarm.
47. If someone forgets to shut the door, I really shouldn't tease them by perching on it, and yelling "Here she goes! She's gonna escape this time for sure! Then what will you do?" (Yes my human does yell it, but that is no reason to throw it in her face). I will not then hide under the stoop and silently watch the melee while they frantically search for me.
48. It's not funny to imitate the telephone as soon as my human gets into the shower.
49. It is not funny to fly into walls and fall behind the furniture, making my poor human or her roommate think that I have injured myself.
50. It is not funny to land on the blade of the ceiling fan and then tweet pitifully until my human rescues me (Especially since my human is only 5'4" and must stand on a chair to get me down).
51. More annoying bird habits: landing on shoulder unannounced, while owner is in the shower; "helping" to wrap Christmas presents (sticky tape, feathers and paper don't mix); stealing whole slices of toast off the breakfast plate and dropping them butter side down; sticking my beak into any unguarded cup of tea, when I know it's not good for me; putting chewed paper into my human's ear, then screeching when it is rejected; Ring necks and Alexandrines should not enter the budgie cage and then complain about getting stuck; refusing to believe that you all get the same small seed mix that you have in one of your feeders; Princess parrots do not fit inside budgie nest boxes; Sit on your own eggs please hens; Trying to call the local galah flock into the house through an open window, and nearly falling out in the process; Walking around the house, hiding under beds and rushing out to bite toes, (kakarikis really do this); Pulling chunks of hair out when your person tries to disentangle you from the top of their head; Objecting to the human's children getting a hug by growling at them whilst perched on a shoulder; Chewing glasses with the person still wearing them, just to get attention.
52. My human's purse, shopping bags and back pack are not for my personal enjoyment and I will not climb into them anymore.
53. When my human's back is turned at the pet store I will not reach into her purse and pluck out one of her tampons and proceed to unwrap it and start shredding it. Likewise, when she leaves me in the car for a second, I will not climb onto the back of the seat, after garnering one of the above and proceed to play with it while people are looking into the windows, amazed to see such a bird and prompting them to ask my human when she returns to the car, "What is he doing?".

--- Bodily Functions --- 

1. I do not have to say "Good poopie" whenever one of my poops stays in the cage, especially when there are guests over.
2. I will not attempt to mate with my human's nightgown.
3. I will not barf in my human's beard, even if offering my barfed up lunch is a sign of love for a bird's mate.
4. I will not barf in my human's ear.
5. I will not barf on my human's toes, no matter how much I think that they look like baby birds.
6. I will not decide after my bath water has been changed to relieve myself in it and then take my bath.
7. I will not defy the laws of physics by pooping on the walls, ceiling, and areas fifty feet away when I haven't left my cage all day.
8. I will not fly like I'm fully flighted just after a wing clip.
9. I will not go into my cage and play with myself, making little squeaking mating noises, when my human is eating, working on the computer, talking on the telephone...or generally ignoring me.
10. I will not jump into my humans' bowl of popcorn and poop.
11. I will not laugh when I poop over the carpet, especially when my human waited five minutes for me to go through the motions and tail-wagging over the plastic carpet runner designated as the poop-zone.
12. I will not mate with random piece of kleenex, then fall over beak first and lie there gasping after my work is finished. (At least, not in front of company…)
13. I will not poop in my human's hair, down her back, etc., etc.
14. I will not poop in my water dish right after my human fills it.
15. I will not poop in the printer.
16. I will not poop into my human's open purse several times after escaping my cage, and leave it for her to find later.
17. I will not poop on my human when she is finished with her shower and is reaching for the towel.
18. I will not poop on my human's $150 silk blouse that has to be dry cleaned.
19. I will not poop on my human's hand and then fly away, just because I can.
20. I will not poop on my humans' new sofa.
21. I will not poop on the bathroom fixtures and then fly away, leaving another bird to be blamed for my misdeeds.
22. I will not poop on the computer.
23. I will not poop on the floor when Human is bringing the newspaper bedding to the trashcan.
24. I will not poop on the keyboard (just an accident, honest).
25. I will not poop on the others in my cage, even if it's extremely funny and makes them scream.
26. I will not poop while my human is putting new paper down (that is, before the paper is down and on the bare carpet) and laugh madly after I do it!
27. I will not sit on the very edge of my t-stand and poop where it will hit the carpet.
28. I will not use picture frames as perches, then do my business right down the front of the picture - and same with the mini blinds.
29. I will not wait until the precise Moment, when I am playing on the couch, and the husband says, "That bird is gonna poop everywhere!" and then you say, "Aw, he's a good boy. He won't do a no-no," to poop.
30. The basket of clean laundry is not my personal potty.
31. We will not "humpty-dumpty" with kids under 6 years visiting.
32. We will not conduct our hanky-panky sessions on the windowsill of the front bedroom window of our townhouse so that my human's adult and child neighbors approach her (even before she has gotten out of the car when arriving from work) come running to ask her just what it was exactly we were doing up on the windowsill a little while ago.
33. We will not get "frisky" in front of dinner guests.

--- Destroying ---

1. Cash and cheques are not there for me to shred. It is very important that they be left intact.
2. Chairs are furniture, not food or chew toys.
3. I will not act really nice to human visitors and then when they let me on their arm try to dissect their clothes. I am not in biology class and shirts are NOT frogs.
4. I will not add perforations to the cover of every paperback book I meet. My humans don't want to tear the covers off.
5. I will not attempt to correct the problems of the human condition by chewing Yemen off the world globe.
6. I will not bite through the mouse cord.
7. I will not chew and otherwise destroy toys and perches just so that my bird siblings cannot use them.
8. I will not chew holes in the window screen.
9. I will not chew holes through ...certain areas... of my human's fiance's pajamas while he is asleep, then laugh when my human asks him if he is making a fashion statement.
10. I will not chew my human's watch band through again.
11. I will not chew off all the beads my human spent hours sewing to her costume by hand.
12. I will not chew off remote control buttons.
13. I will not chew on bills and then drop them into the trash can.
14. I will not chew on Halloween/Xmas decorations.
15. I will not chew on my humans' library books.
16. I will not chew on the blinds until they come down, trapping me between them and the window.
17. I will not chew on the corner of the couch.
18. I will not chew on the mouse cord, keyboard cord, etc., etc.
19. I will not chew on the window sashes or grilles.
20. I will not chew on window sills so all visitors think termites are in the house.
21. I will not chew the brand new wall-paper off the walls.
22. I will not chew the cork out of the center of the coasters.
23. I will not chew the foil off the champagne bottles in the wine rack.
24. I will not chew the important outgoing snail mail
25. I will not chew the mouse cord.
26. I will not chew the plaster off the walls.
27. I will not chew through the phone cords while my human is talking to her father (who is not supposed to know I exist yet).
28. I will not chew up all the houseplants.
29. I will not chew up our fifteen year old plant.
30. I will not chew up the cookbooks or magazines.
31. I will not chew up the woodwork.
32. I will not destroy the remote control units.
33. I will not eat any more of my human's diamonds
34. I will not eat my human family's new redwood deck again (unless of course, I get the chance).
35. I will not eat the precious stones out of my humans' earrings and leave the rest!
36. I will not excavate holes into the walls and then become angry and sullen when my human covers them. I will not then attempt to renew my excursion into wall excavation by ruining repairs made to conceal the damage I caused.
37. I will not fly up to the puzzle hanging on the wall that my human just made and glued together and chew it all up and then go back up there after she told me not to.
38. I will not get mad at the cats for being "free" and then go into my humans' bedroom to chew her brand new cat lamp screaming "Bad Kitty" the whole time.
39. I will not make eyelet lace out of every sheet of paper I meet.
40. I will not peel up and chew on the bathroom floor tiles.
41. I will not pluck 44 of the keys out of my mother's computer keyboard.
42. I will not pull the carpet out from under the base board and shred it.
43. I will not purposely break any valuable small object I can get my beak onto.
44. I will not remove the little plastic ends of shoe laces from all shoes in the house so that the shoe laces fray and no longer fit through the holes.
45. I will not rip Beatle posters into little shreds leaving only the bird posters that I like.
46. I will not try to remove the stones from rings
47. I will not turn the bookshelves into piles of wood chips.
48. I will not turn up the heater in the aquarium while my humans are out, boiling all the fish.
49. Pearl necklaces are expensive. When I see one on my human's neck, I will not +treat it the same as the rod of cheap plastic beads in my cage.
50. The shattering of crystal glasses with sound waves should be done by opera divas, not Macaws.

--- Food/Water ---

1. I must remember that, although bird seed is delicious to me, my human does not like it, especially after it's been eaten once already.
2. I will eat pellets and fresh veggies.
3. I will no longer sample food from every person's plate and then decide none of it is good enough for me to eat.
4. I will not bathe in my human's grandpas tomato soup, although it does make him giggle.
5. I will not eat only red pellets all day long causing my human to go into hysterics thinking I'm bleeding internally when she gets home from work, and she sees my poop.
6. I will not fly in my humans' spaghetti plate, eat a strand, shake the paste off my beak and try another one to see if it tastes the same.
7. I will not get insulted when my human offers me healthy food.
8. I will not go crazy and try to get out of my cage when I see my human taking the yellow cheese out of the fridge.
9. I will not go on seed safaris on the floor to annoy my human and possibly get inadvertently stepped on.
10. I will not gobble all the seeds in my dish and drop my Avi-Cakes through the bars onto the floor. The Avi-Cakes are good for me and it makes my human happy when I eat them.
11. I will not gobble up branches of parsley one day, and the next day react to a sprig of parsley as though it were deadly nightshade.
12. I will not help myself to my human's French fries just because she is reading a book. When she gives me one that is enough.
13. I will not jump into dishes of steaming hot refried beans to gobble down as much as I can before I get removed.
14. I will not land in the middle of my human's pizza, then walk all over it.
15. I will not make tracks across my human's (and guests) pizza trying to get to the pepperoni rolls only to be slowed down by the small container of dipping sauce which splashed all over me when I tried to step up on the side of it. (My human didn't like it when I bit her as she was trying to get all that ranch dressing out of my feathers either.)
16. I will not park myself by the treats and hog them, refusing to move, until the last seed is eaten and I am so stuffed I cannot walk, let alone fly.
17. I will not pick out my favorite colors in my rainbow mix food and leave all the round orange ones in the bowl.
18. I will not pretend to want to eat my human's cereal then jump in and take a bath.
19. I will not refuse to eat people food unless it is delivered from my human's lips.
20. I will not regurgitate my dinner and feed it to the Birdie In The Mirror for entertainment.
21. I will not rub my cute little behind in my humans' spaghetti.
22. I will not run away with large pieces of lettuce from my human's salad.
23. I will not stuff myself into the water glass and attempt to take a bath when I have only been offered a drink of water.
24. I will stop making puppy dog whimpers every time people are eating salty popcorn in the room and not sharing.
25. When I say, "Mmm, Beakly want yum-yum!" I really will eat whatever I was begging for.

--- Hampering ---

1. I will go into my cage quietly and without a struggle.
2. I will not attack my human's fingers when she tries to do homework.
3. I will not attempt to manipulate my human into staying longer to entertain me as she attempts to leave for work by singing the sweetest and most lovely lullabies and serenades I've ever sung in all my life.
4. I will not chase my human's fingers frantically as she's typing so I can try to remove her long nails.
5. I will not chew the tips of the shoelaces in my human's shoes 3 minutes before she leaves the house for work.
6. I will not chew up the antenna on the cordless phone or wedge myself between my human's ear and the telephone when she's in the middle of a phone conversation.
7. I will not come out of my food or water door if my human leaves it open while feeding me.
8. I will not feed almond shells to the printer. This makes it feel so full that it won't eat the paper my human feeds it.
9. I will not fight my human for the right to use the remote control; she has the right to choose the program we watch.
10. I will not fly to the other side of the room when my human is trying to put me back in my cage.
11. I will not get off my t-stand and try to follow my human up the stairs.
12. I will not gnaw on my human's ear while she attempts to use the phone.
13. I will not grab the mouse by the "tail" and drag it around, causing the computer to do weird things.
14. I will not help my humans type on the computer.
15. I will not insist on being in the presence of my human 24 hours/day 7 days/week.
16. I will not make my human look stupid when she tells her friends I can talk.
17. I will not perch on the curtain rods just out of reach when it is time to go back in my cage.
18. I will not play boomerang when I'm being tossed back to my cage.
19. I will not pull out that cute little button on my human's watch, even though it is fun to watch her later in the day when she looks back and forth between the clock on the wall and her watch and then runs around really fast grabbing things and flees the house.
20. I will not put my tail on the keyboard while my human is typing, then get mad when my tail gets pressed into a key.
21. I will not sit right on the section of newspaper my human is trying to read.
22. I will not steal my human's pens and pencils and throw them on the floor and then proceed to chew up her eraser.
23. I will not take the covers off other birds' cages when it's time to go to bed.
24. I will not tap on the "Escape" key on the keyboard when my human's almost done composing a long, involved email.
25. I will not try to remove that funny covering my humans put over the blood blister I gave her yesterday.
26. I will not turn my human's recipe to confetti while she's in the middle of using it.
27. I will not use delaying tactics (all my favorite tricks, get a drink of water, etc) to prevent my human from putting me to bed.
28. I will not walk (and fight) on the computer keyboard when my human is trying to write a paper.
29. I will not whimper with every breath for the entire time that my human is talking on the telephone.
30. I will refrain from deciding whether or not to cooperate and get into my cage based on an assessment of the clothes the humans are wearing: bathing suit (pool) = OK; regular clothes + coat + packed items (a trip and I'm going!) =OK; regular clothes (veterinarian's office) = NO WAY.
31. We will not act like a dive-bomber squadron and take turns diving one inch from our owner's heads while they use the computer.
32. We will not scare the goldfish as we 'take a bath' in the aquarium!

--- Human-Related ---

1. Human's fingernails are not feather sheaths and do not need to be removed by me.
2. I do not have to bite my human if I see someone that I don't like and is out of my reach.
3. I will continue to act incredibly cute and cuddly when visitors are here, even when I won't give my human the time of day after they leave.
4. I will continue to make my human laugh by tickling her when I take a bath in her wet hair after a shower! We both think this is fun!
5. I will not "roll" my human's living room with toilet paper.
6. I will not act calm and dainty with human visitors who come upstairs to see me and then suddenly shriek, circle over head and finally pounce onto my human's chest, cling like Velcro to her shirt, and scream "mommy! mommy!", all the while feigning terror because of the "intruder."
7. I will not attack my human's cousin, then be a perfect gentlemen to the other one.
8. I will not attack my human's two year old...even if she deserves it.
9. I will not attempt to pierce my human's nose and lips.
10. I will not bite my human in a vain attempt to be a conure nose ring.
11. I will not bite my human when she has to clean the marshmallow fluff off of my belly because I decided to do a belly flop in her sister's marshmallow and graham cracker sandwich.
12. I will not bite my human's neck just because I hate her new haircut.
13. I will not bite my human's nipple (through her shirt) and haul myself up on it, in attempt to climb up onto her shoulder. 
14. I will not cause my human teenage brother to need 5 stitches on Saturday night, just because my human showed up.
15. I will not chew on my human.
16. I will not chew on my human's braces and refuse to let go.
17. I will not climb all the way up my human's arm just so I can sneeze in her eye.
18. I will not crawl into my human's shirt from her collar in front of company; she only laughs because she's ticklish, not because it's funny.
19. I will not draw blood.
20. I will not fly at my peoples' faces and attempt to peck out their eyes when they let me out of my cage, just because its shopping day and I had to be kept in for more than an hour.
21. I will not fly in to spy on my humans when they are alone together in their bedroom and then fly out to invite the rest of my bird siblings to come in and watch the show, too, thereby returning with the entire flock of peeping-toms. I will further not dive at the male human in an effort to protect the female human from whatever it is I think he is doing to her, nor will I incite my siblings to fly overhead, shrieking and screaming, causing human heads pop up from under the covers, just so that we can get a better look at what they are doing under there (there is one particular bird who acts like the scout spy and gets this whole process into motion).
22. I will not fly out of the nest box like a bat out of hell and bite my human, who is trying to keep me supplied with the makings of baby food. (Birds regurgitate when feeding their young).
23. I will not get mad and attack my human because he needs to use the iron to press his pants to go to work. 
24. I will not grab people's feet, especially when they don't know I'm there.
25. I will not grab the bills of stranger's baseball caps and hang by my beak waving my talons in their faces.
26. I will not hold my foot up and look innocent so that my human's daughter thinks that I am going to let her hold me, and then try to bite her.
27. I will not incite my bird brothers to help me conduct experiments measuring primate reflexes by diving at all human male visitors, flying within an inch of their faces, then zipping up and over their heads, dragging our feet through their hair for added effect.
28. I will not insist on pulling down the necklines of women in wenchy costumes when my humans take me to the renaissance fair. I will also refrain from untying their bodices and picking out their embroidery.
29. I will not land on my human's head while she is trying to wash her hair.
30. I will not look at my human as though he is hallucinating when his eyes water in pain or he winces after I have plucked a hair from his beard because I insisted on preening him.
31. I will not nibble on my human's lip when she's trying to talk to someone.
32. I will not play "king of the mountain" on my human's girlfriend when she is trying to make friends with me.
33. I will not pluck the hairs from the back of my human's neck.
34. I will not preen my human's beard stubble.
35. I will not pretend I want a kiss and then bite my human's lip.
36. I will not pull earrings out of ear holes (especially when just pierced).
37. I will not refuse to come to my human when I'm more interested in something else.
38. I will not remove my human's eyelashes.
39. I will not run into the room of my Most Hated Human when I escape from my cage, then scream bloody murder because he is in there. It is his room; he has a right to be there.
40. I will not run up the front of my human and grab her lip when she meows at me.
41. I will not scare the visitors by landing on their shoulders and chirping *loudly* in their ears.
42. I will not shriek at my human's visitor when they step up to admire me, then laugh at them when they jump and wince.
43. I will not stick my dry ugly black tongue in my human's ear or up her nose.
44. I will not stick my tongue in my human's mouth when she kisses my beak, especially after I have been hand fed. Just because I like the food that tastes like dirt does NOT mean that the human does.
45. I will not suddenly fly into a jealous rage and scream at the top of my lungs when my male human's girlfriend comes into the room and gives my human a hug.
46. I will not try to crawl into my human's mouth every time I see an opening big enough for me to fit.
47. I will not try to crawl into my human's mouth while she is eating what I can't have.
48. I will not try to preen my human by pulling out her hair one strand at a time.
49. I will not try to remove freckles and moles from people's necks.
50. I will not try to remove my human's girlfriend's fingertips every time she feeds me.
51. I will not try to remove my human's girlfriend's nose every time she walks near my cage!
52. I will not yank earrings off people's ears.
53. I will remember that toenails and fingernails are not feather sheaths and need not be removed.
54. I will remind my human that I'm on her shoulder when she opens the door so I won't get the chance to escape (the bird did come back).
55. I will stop staring longingly at my human's nose stud, making her paranoid.
56. If I go under my human's sweatshirt, I will NOT bite.
57. Just because my human's mouth is closed, I will not explore their nose as an alternate source of food (especially when he is trying to talk on the telephone).
58. Telling my human that I'm a bad bird after taking a chunk out of my human does not negate my crime.
59. Toes are not the enemy.
60. When sitting on my human's shoulder, I will not press my butt up against her face when something startles or scares me and then continue to mash myself against her until the danger has passed.

--- Mess-Making ---

1. I do not need to repeatedly test the theories of gravity with my food.
2. I do not need to test the vacuum's suction by throwing my food on the floor as soon as anyone comes near my cage to vacuum and keep repeating this until the human gives up and ends up sneaking up and cleaning around the cage by hand after I'm asleep.
3. I will not bulldoze everything off the desk the moment my human's back is turned.
4. I will not dig out the grout on the tile countertops.
5. I will not dump my dish of seed over!
6. I will not dump the remains of the wallpaper purposely onto my human's head from on top of the door frame while she is using the phone.
7. I will not fly around my cage like a maniac and throw feathers all over the floor right after my humans swept the floor.
8. I will not grab every banana-flavored bit of food out of my pellet mix, and deliberately carry it over and drop it in the water dish so it can turn to sludge.
9. I will not have a crash landing on the living room table and slide everything off in the process.
10. I will not make perforations along all the edges of the checks my human just wrote to pay the bills, even if I like my lace work.
11. I will not make soup by putting everything I get in my water dish and this especially includes spaghetti.
12. I will not overturn the bathtub because another bird got into it first (even if the other bird did lace the water with poop).
13. I will not put all the newspaper in my cage into my water bowl immediately after I get fresh paper in my cage.
14. I will not soak everything in my water dish, making my human change the water because it is green from my wood toy I am trying to soften.
15. I will not stick my head in a full bowl of pellets and sling them all over the carpet. I will not scream louder than the vacuum cleaner if I forget and DO sling my pellets.
16. I will not tell my human I want my bathtub by getting into my water dish and splashing water at her.
17. I will not throw the foods I like on the floor of the living room.
18. I will not try to bathe in my human's glass of Gatorade.
19. I will not try to make nests out of new bouquets of flowers.
20. I will not use dirty dish water as a bath.
21. I will not wedge my naughty budgie head under my seed and water dishes, give a mighty heave, and dump their contents all over the cage floor every morning, then tweet pitifully until they are refilled.
22. I will not wipe the cheese (from my macaroni and cheese) on my beak on the shoulder of my human's shirt, giving a sticky glazing.
23. I will stop stuffing my food in my back and chest feathers. I am pretty enough and don't need to decorate myself.
24. Paper towels are on the roll for a reason. I need not unroll the whole thing.

--- Miscellaneous ---

1. I will not be civil only when I want something.
2. I will not escape from my cage while my human is gone, walk through the living room, down the hall, and into my human's bedroom, decide I'm tired and crawl into the middle of a pile of dirty clothes for a nap, then not answer my human when she calls and frantically searches the house for me.
3. I will not misbehave and then be cute in an attempt to weasel out of it.
4. I will not read this list and get ideas...

--- Misuse/Misappropriation of Items ---

1. I will not "nest" behind the toaster oven.
2. I will not steal my human's earrings when she's already late.
3. I will not take baths in my human's desktop fountain.
4. I will not use the printer as a place to hide my favorite pellets. (This happened a few weeks ago when I couldn't work out why the printer wouldn't feed the paper into the machine. When I lifted the printer up and turned it upside down and shook it, all sorts came out.)
5. Lampshades are not perches.
6. The R2D2 figure belongs on top of my human's computer monitor.

--- Night-Time ---

1. I will not feed my human while she is sleeping. She may choke one morning on the corn and peanuts.
2. I will not get out of the cage at 2 a.m. and fly around the room in the dark bumping into the windows and doors, then when my human tries to put me back in my cage I will not bite her. I also will not encourage the other 3 birds to do the same as me.
3. I will not meow loudly at 3 a.m. (It's a mynah bird, who learned from the cat.)
4. I will not page people at 5:30 in the morning.
5. I will not scare my human half to death in the middle of the night by whispering "Hello" as she walks sleepily past my cage on her way back to bed after going to the bathroom.
6. I will not scream my lungs out at 5 in the morning.
7. I will not wake my human by crawling under the sheets, stalking down to the foot of the bed and yanking the hairs out of her big toe.
8. I will not wake up my human at 4:30 in the morning by talking, screaming and throwing seeds in her face.
9. I will not whistle and say "Woof woof, dumb dog!" at 4:30 in the morning until my human wakes up. If she doesn't get up I will not try to wake her up my flicking seeds in her face, nor will I dip my beak in water and splash water at her face. Furthermore, knocking the phone off the hook, pressing the preset button for 911 and screaming like a girl into the phone is not a cute way to get some attention.
10. I will not whistle the Happy Birthday song in the middle of the night, just because I feel lonely.  (Sometimes, he does a medley of all the tunes he knows to get our attention).
11. waking her up by chewing the dried poop and letting the crumbs fall in her mouth.

Pooping on my human's head when she takes a nap is bad enough, but I will stop ---

Noise ---

1. I do not have to end my human's phone conversations for her by continuously saying "OK, bye" until she hangs up.
2. I do not like cat food. I will not shriek jealously when the hedgehogs get their night-time cat food and I am supposed to be asleep anyway.
3. I will control myself and resist the urge to blurt out "poophead!" as loudly and clearly as possible, then fluff myself up victoriously and bob my head in laughter when the humans abruptly stop talking during times when my humans have important visitors and guests. (Actually, he blurted out "s**tbird
4. I will no longer jealously start screaming whenever my human even thinks about picking up the phone.
5. I will not answer "yummmmy" when I've been bad and my human asks me if she should make cockatoo stew for dinner.
6. I will not chirp so loudly that the neighbours come over and think someone is in pain.
7. I will not deliberately egg the guinea pigs on in a competitive shrieking match.
8. I will not do the "flock call" (FWEEEEP!) while sitting on someone's shoulder.
9. I will not flop down from my cage, hide someplace or get lost and scream until my human finds me.
10. I will not fly from room to room following my human while she uses the vacuum cleaner and attempt to either harmonize with the vacuum or out-sing it, thereby instantly deafening every human in the household as soon as the vacuum is switched off because I am approaching the opus of my repertoire and refuse to lower my decibel level.
11. I will not freak out, drop to the bottom of my cage and scream every time someone walks by with a foreign object such as a trashcan or grocery sack.
12. I will not growl at my human when they try to pick me up.
13. I will not hang upside down by one toe screaming from the top of the jungle gym when my humans take me to the park, then right myself and laugh hysterically when they panic and try to catch me.
14. I will not imitate the dog's bark, and cause her to be sent to her room for not hushing. Especially because we know she holds a grudge.
15. I will not imitate the phone when my human is on deployment every time someone tries to leave the house.
16. I will not imitate the telephone rings. (Most of the time he will say hello after he does it.)
17. I will not make my human have a heart attack by screaming like I'm being killed though I'm actually fine. (Especially when the cats are lying right under me.)
18. I will not make such an incredible racket that my human cannot hear herself think.
19. I will not make the sound of the smoke alarm every time my human walks into the kitchen.
20. I will not mimic the rooster for two hours straight on the only morning my humans can sleep in.
21. I will not panic and squawk when my human reads the Bad Bird page title out loud in another room.
22. I will not rattle the cage door repeatedly at 5:30 a.m. on days when my human can sleep late.
23. I will not repeat those foul words my human says in moments of irritation, no matter how funny company thinks it is.
24. I will not repeatedly say hello when company comes over and if the company chooses to ignore me I will not scream my jungle scream.
25. I will not ride around on the head of tall people with curly hair, popping out of their hair occasionally while shrieking at the top of my lungs and scaring people.
26. I will not ring my bird cowbell on a chain constantly while my human is trying to have a club meeting in her house.
27. I will not say bye-bye every time my human picks up her purse.
28. I will not scream "Cracker Breath!" at the paramedics when they enter the house to help my human.
29. I will not scream "DINNER" from the time I wake up in the morning until the time my humans bring me food. If they bring me a dish full of pellets, I will not grab the pellets in my claws and hurl them at my humans while shouting "THIS NOT DINNER! WHERE'S DINNER?"
30. I will not scream "Help! Help! Help!" on a hot night when all the windows are open and all the neighbors are home.
31. I will not scream 1,000 times a day (or so it seems...).
32. I will not scream above my natural capacity when my human makes or receives a telephone call, and sustain said screaming throughout the duration of the call.
33. I will not scream as soon as the sun comes up on my human's day off.
34. I will not scream at passing cars as if they are going to attack.
35. I will not scream at precisely eight PM every night for the human to turn the lights off.
36. I will not scream at the top of my lungs when my human is on the phone.
37. I will not scream every time my human leaves the room.
38. I will not scream for attention when my human is entertaining other humans.
39. I will not scream like I am being tortured each time my human is on the phone.
40. I will not scream like someone is killing me when my wings are being clipped. I know it is for my own good.
41. I will not scream like the world is coming to an end if I hear the toilet flush in the middle of the night.
42. I will not scream louder than my human when she is trying to yell at the kids. (I can scream louder you know.)
43. I will not scream MOM as loudly as I can so that when my human does come home she does not find the neighbors trying to break into the house thinking that a kid is trapped or hurt inside.
44. I will not scream my human's name at the top of my lungs, mimicking the neighbor's voice.
45. I will not scream quietly at 5 in the morning so that the bigger bird starts screaming loudly and then blame it on him.
46. I will not scream when my human tries to whistle along with me.
47. I will not scream when the mailman comes. (The naughty dogs taught him this one.)
48. I will not sit on top of my cage and cry during my human's dinner.
49. I will not sound the alarm whenever one of my human's children wakes up crying.
50. I will not sound the distress call for no reason, causing mass chaos.
51. I will not spend the entire day screaming as loud as I can just because my human has her mate, or any other male friend, over to visit.
52. I will not spend the morning saying "Daddy is a Butt Head
53. I will not squeal No, no, no, no, no!" at my human at various times, to which she is expected to reply "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!" and away we go. (Cracks hubby up every time.)
54. I will not start crying like a baby when my human, who is still in college, makes a joke about pregnancy on the phone while talking to her mother.
55. I will not start moaning and gasping when my male human so much as kisses my female human
56. I will not tell everyone who comes in to the house (especially the pizza man) to shut up.
57. I will not throw my seeds into the air purifier to hear the rattling sounds.
58. I will not try to imitate the phone or the vacuum sweeper.
59. I will not try to out scream the TV during the loud commercials.
60. I will not try to out-sing the radio.
61. I will not use a 400 decibel shriek to inform the neighborhood I'm having a good time. They tend to believe someone is being killed and my human's afraid they'll call the police.
62. I will not wait until someone has started homework such as studying for a final to scream my lungs out.
63. I will not whistle the X-Files theme all night and day, and threaten "I'm gonna kill you!" to anyone who comes too close to my cage
64. I will not yell COME ON at every man I see, and then when he does come bite him because I don't like men.
65. I will not yell LOOK OUT when I'm riding in the car and a semi truck drives by (it gets very annoying.)
66. I will try to remember my human works nights and I will try to keep my singing down to a dull roar.
67. It is not my job to make the beeping sounds for the microwave whenever my humans open its door.
68. It is not my job to tell anyone else when or where to go potty.
69. It is not my job to yell "Bad cat, get down!" whenever my feline brother jumps on the TV.
70. Just because I hear my humans' car driving up, I don't have to let the entire neighborhood know.
71. Making the squeaks of various doors in correct order will not make people magically appear from the kitchen with treats.
72. No matter how attractive I think it sounds, my human does not appreciate it when I squawk during her favorite television show.
73. Screaming for no reason is annoying .
74. The other 2 birds and I will not gang up on the cat and dog any more.
75. There's never a good reason or a good time for me to show my humans that I know how to imitate the neighbor's car alarm.
76. We will not cackle outrageously when the family is playing Hearts with my human and she gets the Queen of Spades dumped on her.
77. We will stop squawking and flapping our wings like crazy when anyone other than our human cleans our cage, feeds us, gives us fresh water, tries to play with us.
78. When I go to work with my human, I will not act like a two year old when I get tired and squawk uncontrollably because I want to stay perched on someone's shoulders.
79. When I learn a new word or noise (i.e., burping; snoring; Teletubbies song) I will not continually repeat it for weeks at a time.
80. When I make the "bad noises" (a Gray repeating Macaw squawks), following them with "No! Bad Bird!" does not automatically make it all better.
81. When the UPS truck comes, I will not scream knowing my food and treats are in it, and if the human is not home I will not shred the packaging if it is left unopened.

--- Not All There ---

1. Car headlights outside the window are not the enemy.
2. Christmas tree lights are not the enemy.
3. I (a male African grey) cannot possibly hatch my plastic egg. (He sits for hours on this egg, and sometimes puts it under his wing.)
4. I do not have to grab a fridge door edge, climb up the side to the top, do the Bird Rain Dance (hop, crouch, walk, hiss, hiss repeat) across the top of the fridge, go down the other side to the counter, stop across the counter to the sink and then scream if my human doesn't turn on the water for a "shower". (For a few times I tried to give her a pan of water but she didn't like that idea and dumped them.)
5. I do not need a "security blanket" to sleep with. (She "sleeps" with a small washcloth attached to the top of the cage and buries her head in it.)
6. I do not need to have a conversation with the movies my humans are trying to watch.
7. I really don't need to try to chase the ceiling fan blades, even though it is fun having people chase me around the house turning them off, thus risking death, and raising the A/C bills at the same time.
8. I understand that the whiffle ball is not really my mortal enemy.
9. I will never again stare dim-wittedly into space when my human brags about all the sweet things I know how to say (until the other person leaves the room at least).
10. I will not attack the suction end of the vacuum attachment when my human is cleaning my mess, as this may cause severe bodily injury to me, and may induce a heart attack in my human when part of my body gets sucked in.
11. I will not be so afraid of my human's new pajamas that she has to return them.
12. I will not decide to jump off my perch while my human is gardening and walk away into the horse pasture, almost getting myself killed.
13. I will not fall in love with my human's socks.
14. I will not fall into the toilet anymore.
15. I will not fall into the trash can, even the one across the room I have to fly to.
16. I will not fight with my reflection.
17. I will not fly down to the floor. The dog is out to get me.
18. I will not fly into walls and fall behind the furniture, making my poor human or her roommate think that I have injured myself.
19. I will not land somewhere hidden and scream for help until I hear someone in the room, then shut up so they can't find me.
20. I will not leave perfect imprints of a cockatiel on the bathroom mirror by flying into it.
21. I will not make my first flight through the house and decide that the open top to the 100-gallon salt water aquarium is a good place to land. (The bird, young cockatiel, was fine; he bird-paddled to a power head and waited while I ran over to pick him up, chirruping happily.)
22. I will not scream bloody murder at the stuffed animals. They will not eat me. I can do more damage to them than they could ever do to me.
23. I will not try to drink out of lit candles.
24. I will remember my beak is not made from diamond. If I bang it on the steel bars of my cage enough, it will break.
25. I will remember that if I chew on my 1/2 length perch between where I am perched and where it bolts on the cage, I will end up falling when the perch gives way.
26. I will try to not be afraid of bugs that fly by my cage and window.
27. Just because it is red doesn't mean it is evil, and I don't have to run away from it or make human take it back to the store because it is too scary.
28. My humans ice in her glass is not the enemy. I will not sit on her glass and fight with it and get everyone in the vicinity wet!
29. Nail polish is not scary, and I will not try to get away from lacquered nails that happen to be attached to my human's hands.
30. The cockatiel in the mirror is not trying to invade my territory. I will not attack it.
31. The feather duster is not someone who was bad, so I will stop cowering when it is on the table.
32. The full length mirror in the bedroom is not a secret portal to another universe. If I fly into it, I will be hurt.

--- Other Critters ---

1. I am a parakeet, not an eagle, and I do not dive bomb my brother's fish when he is feeding them.
2. I may be just a lovebird, but I will remember that I am not big enough to land on the cat and then preen his hair and bite him. The cat knows he is not allowed to touch me and therefore sulks after the experience because he can not eat me.
3. I must remember that even painted turtle will snap when provoked, and just because they walk slow does not mean they bite slow.
4. I mustn't cry when I get my just desserts after tormenting the other pets.
5. I will admit that I intended to push the smaller bird off the cage and that it didn't "just happen".
6. I will also try not to swim with the fish in their bowl, and I understand that the fish bowl is for the convenience of the fish and not my personal potty.
7. I will not ask the dog if she wants to go outside just to watch her jump the gate and no one is there so she has to jump back over it and walk past my cage with her head hanging down and I LAUGH at her!
8. I will not attack the hamster through its cage.
9. I will not bite the bigger bird's toes.
10. I will not bite the budgie.
11. I will not bite the mastiff on the nose, then keep repeating "come here" to get another shot at him.
12. I will not bring all the snails & crabs out of the aquarium back to "my house" to play.
13. I will not call the dog and make it look at my human like "What? That was your voice wasn't it?"
14. I will not call the dog over to me and then take a chunk out of her ear.
15. I will not crawl under the bottom bars of my neighbor's cage than eat his food and poop when my human just cleaned both our cages and given us both snacks.
16. I will not either put my foot on the chests of my bird siblings and push them away or grasp their feathers and pull them toward me, as the case may be.
17. I will not escape my cage while my human is not home, fly to the top of the ceiling fan in the living room
18. I will not fly toward the dogs and try to land on them, scaring them half to death.
19. I will not grab the base of another bird's tail with my foot, causing the other bird to twitter or screech angrily, and hold on to it so they cannot turn and confront me. I will further not attempt to hide my guilt by flying away and pretending to be asleep on the curtain rod immediately prior to the arrival of the house human to investigate the ruckus.
20. I will not hiss at my brother when he is trying to be nice to me.
21. I will not intimidate the cats or try to groom their whiskers.
22. I will not lay eggs in other birds' cages.
23. I will not lure smaller birds into grabbing distance by pretending to want to preen them/get preened by them.
24. I will not open the door on the next cage and let out the finches.
25. I will not push smaller birds off the end of the shower perch or crawl over them so I can push them off the end of the shower perch.
26. I will not scare the German Shepherd by imitating his bark and growl.
27. I will not secretly "do it" with my boyfriend and lay fertile eggs.
28. I will not sit on other people's eggs.
29. I will not sit on the chair next to the window and drive the neighbor's cats crazy.
30. I will not switch to full battle-cockatoo mode when I first see the visiting bird, then run away whenever she tries to come near me to make friends.
31. I will not take a swim in my human's aquarium.
32. I will not throw water from my water bowl all over the unsuspecting guinea pigs beside my habitat.
33. I will not torment my sister after she has made it clear she doesn't want to play.
34. I will not torment the dog by doing fly-bys when I know she will try to snap at me, and have to go back to her room.
35. I will not try to kill my human's friend's cockatiel when put in the same house as him.
36. I will not try to mate with the bunny's ear, and then wonder why she bit my toe and drew blood, scaring my human half to death.
37. I will not try to remove the tails from my human's girlfriend's cats.
38. I will remember that the floor is the dog's territory; the dog has the right to chase me down there.
39. I will remember the cat's tail is not a chew toy.
40. I will stop sending the dog to his kennel (Yes the dog always goes when I tell him to).
41. It is not nice to call the cats by name over and over until they come to me, and then try to bite them.
42. Preening other species (like rodents) is not always welcome.
43. Pushing other cockatiels off the table is not fun.
44. The dogs don't like me. I will try not to step up on their backs while they are asleep.
45. We will not scare the goldfish as we take a bath in the aquarium.

--- Vets, Illness and Medicine ---

1. I will control myself when going for my check-up and not attempt to evade or sidestep the veterinarian, nor when I am picked up commence screaming the Universal Birdie Distress Call so loudly that the humans cannot hear each other talk, all the other birds in the clinic are worked into a screaming frenzy and general panic, and the clinic staff must shut off all the lights in the office to quiet us down. After all, I am a dainty and dignified budgie. (So predictable and loud is her screaming that she earned the title "Little Monster" amongst the office staff).
2. I will not turn around and attempt to bite the veterinarian as payback after he is finished examining me, has returned me to my perch and is already withdrawing his hand.