A Post for the Birds

I’ve been reading through old blog posts this morning… trying to find one in particular when my husband and I actually entertained the idea of spending $330 on a bird.
Ridiculous, right? Even we couldn’t believe ourselves.

Anyway, I blogged about the bird. I took pictures of the bird. It was at the Pet Store in the city, and IT WANTED US. It did tricks for us and tried to push through it’s cage to play with us. It was so sweet that we seriously considered spending $330 on it. You had to be there to understand.

I couldn’t find the post, but I did find a bunch of other posts. Reading through my blog is downright emotional! In just one hour this morning, I’ve been laughing hysterically over the post I wrote months ago where my naked son ran out the front door (after flooding the bathroom and WHILE I was cleaning up another flood in the laundry room) and joined his grandpa on a tractor behind our house. Ah… boys.
I was put into tears reading about Lacy grappling with the death of our wild bird (that my husband pegged with a water balloon).
And then tears sprang to my eyes again when I read about the time my husband caught me off guard and told me I was beautiful in Olive Garden and I started bawling.
Oh me. Oh my.

I found all that and not one HINT of the expensive bird.

Well.

The girl was distraught over the above bird’s mentioned death, that she decided to ask Santa Clause for a bird. We were just planning on getting her a parakeet, but I wanted a tame one -one she could handle and love on and train. The bad news is: no one around here has any. Of course the pet store has some and they are “hand fed,” but they’re not. Not really. Our last bird (rest in peace, CK Dexter Haven) was from the pet store, and though he was nice enough, he was hard to train.
I want a little bird that is friendly enough for my almost 5 year old.

Through mass amounts of googling, I finally found a phone number for a woman 2 hours away who raises exotic birds. According to her website, she didn’t have parakeets, but I thought I might as well ask anyway. I called the number she listed (at 9:04 am) and was greeted (if that’s what you can call it) by a frustrated man who insisted that he DID NOT sell birds and that The Bird Woman had REFUSED to remove her old number from the website but somehow when he insisted that she do it… HE was the BAD GUY!
I slowly backed outta THAT conversation and sent an email to The Bird Woman instead. After more googling, I found a family 3 1/2 hours away that raises birds out of their home.
Again, I didn’t see any postings for parakeets, BUT… BUTBUTBUT I did see that they had Green Cheek Conures for sale.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?!?!
OUR bird -the one at the pet store -was a Green Cheek Conure.

According to the breeding season, all of them had been sold. Their listed price was $275… a little less than what the pet store had them listed for. In small text they suggested calling their neighbor because she had some for sale. Why not? I’d already taken a small vocal assault from a frustrated man who DID NOT sell birds… what was the worst that could happen?
In the back of my mind, I KNEW that we only had $40 budgeted for the budgie (I’m so clever).
But there was a greedy, bigger part of me that just wanted to check. You know, for my DAUGHTER’S sake.
I dialed.
A woman answered.
I expressed my desire -a Christmas bird for an almost 5 year old.
“After doing some research, I realize that you’ve probably sold out months ago, but I thought I’d still check.”

As it turns out, she’d been busy getting married, and hadn’t actively been selling her birds. She has 7 birds. That is to say: she had 7 hand-fed Green Cheek Conures.
Catching my hopes in my throat, I asked her, “How much?”
“$200.”
My hopes all came rushing out in one excited out burst, “That’s SO cheap!”
I realize $200 may not SEEM like a “good deal” on a little bird, but after seeing one priced fr $330… $200 seems like a Better than Black Friday deal.

I told her I’d talk it over with my husband, and I hung up. Immediately, I dialed my husband at work. By this time, it was nearing noon, and I was still in my PJs. I had been online all morning tracking down birds.
When my husband picked up, I rattled on and on about the bird, stopping only to breathe.
“Remember the beautiful green bird at the pet store we wanted that cost $330 well I just found a lady who RAISES them and she hand feeds them and they are tame and BETTER than what we can get at the pet store andyou’renotgoingtobelievethis BUT… they’re only $200.”
I waited for reply.
I only got a heavy sigh… the heavy sigh of a man who knows he’s been beat. (Okay, I can not tell a lie. He DID reply, but I can’t print what he said here. After he replied, he sighed heavily. So we’ll just pick up there.)

“You won’t have to get me anything else for Christmas,” I nearly hopped up and down, “Just please let us give the bird to Lacy. Please, please, pleeeeeeease.”
“She won’t get as much under the tree…” He said.
“That’s true,” I nodded.
“And we’ll have to buy a cage and all the supplies.”
“You don’t have to buy me ANYTHING,” I raised my right hand to swear myself in, since he couldn’t see me.
“I’ll see where our Christmas fund is at.”
“So…”
“I’m not sure, but I think we can make it work.”

Beautiful words, those. Music to my ears. I can’t tell ya how much I want one of these birds.

I was telling my Dad all about it, and he said, “Wait… who are you getting this bird for?”
It’s for my daughter, of course. I promise! I honestly believe she’ll get a bigger kick out of a bird she can actually play with rather than one who is scared stiff of her.

If I could find a hand-fed parakeet, I would definitely go that route. But I can’t.

Shucks.