I Couldn't Tell You What I Was Thinking

I apologize for that last entry. I apparently wrote [sic] it during the empirical blackout in which I have been lost the last several days.

I confess that it makes absolutely no sense to me, and although it is not uncommon for things that show up here to make no sense to me in the cold light of day, very seldom do I literally have no memory of having even written the words in question.

At some point in the early hours of the morning this entry —this, these words– was typed, I discovered that I was clutching a crumpled ATM receipt in my fist on which was scrawled this quote from Hippocrates: “If the matters which are purged be such as should be purged, the evacuation is beneficial, and easily borne; but, if otherwise, with difficulty.” Turning this scrap of paper over in my hand I found another sentence, also attributed to Hippocrates: “A woman does not become ambidexterous.”

I was seated in a green chair. I had a pen in my right hand (I almost always have a pen in my right hand; I’m like Bob Dole in that way, I guess, although I believe Dole grips his pen in his left hand, and for entirely different reasons). Charley Patton was moaning softly from the stereo in the background. I had no recollection of consulting Hippocrates, and couldn’t imagine owning a book of any sort that would contain the words which were jotted on that receipt. I looked around the room where I was seated, hoping that I would find the source of these quotes. I moved a great number of things around, in fact, but did not find what I was looking for. I wandered into the next room and investigated the various piles of books that were heaped all over the place there. Still no Hippocrates.

Blessedly, I suppose, my mind in the wee hours (okay, fine, my mind in general) is like that of a severely cross-wired lab rat, and I eventually found myself back in the green chair, slumped in my habitual stupor. From the stereo Arthur Rubinstein, I believe, was playing Chopin’s Nocturnes; I realized that I was now thinking about something that I have spent a great deal of time thinking about over the years. And that is this: How much control, I wonder, does a parrot’s owner have over the bird’s command of the language, such as it is; or, specifically, the words and sentences it learns to speak?

From that launching point I wondered –presuming one has real control over such things– what words or phrases I would choose to teach a parrot. It seems like this would be an important question. You’re presumably going to have to live with these words for as long as you own the parrot.

Given this assumption, I’d think you’d want to teach the bird to say something wise, beautiful, or consoling. But what? Parrots, I’d think, are more likely to be aphorists rather than storytellers, so you’d probably want to choose something short and sweet.

People’s first instinct –which is almost always a tragic one– is to teach a bird to say something funny or profane. They want to make an insult comedian out of the parrot rather than a philosopher or a poet, but I imagine the severely limited wiseacre routine would get old in a hurry.

I can’t imagine living with a bird that cursed me or shrieked my name all day long.

I recall once visiting a couple of my acquaintance that had taught their parrot to do a terse and terrible John Wayne impression. “Howdy pilgrim!” the bird would drawl over and over, until I wanted desperately to run the damn thing through with a knitting needle.

I also have some dim memory from my childhood of a parrot that had learned to say, “You bet your sweet bippy!” I think you’ll agree that it would be unacceptable to have such a bird in your home.

I thought for a long time about what words I would teach my parrot (even though, I should probably admit, I would never, under any circumstances, actually wish to own a parrot, or a bird of any kind). I’m still thinking about it, in fact, and when and if I manage to narrow it down I’ll let you know what I’ve come up with. In the meantime, feel free to send me your own suggestions.