A keen sense of irony

January 29, 2004

A keen sense of irony was sharpened early on. My mother’s sense of optimism precipitated the cycle. We had a budgie named “Perky”. It didn’t last long. After a year or so Perky began to sulk in the bottom corner of the cage with his head hung low. There isn’t a lot you can do to help a budgie with terminal depression. The door was open in hopes that the bonds of captivity could be taken out of the equation. He didn’t feel like flying. It took a week and he had passed. We mourned for an appropriate length of time and the empty cage made its heavy statement. One parent brought home a new budgie to fill the void and eat the leftover seed. We named him Perky in tribute to our fallen squab. Sooner than the last Perky he was tits up in the cage. So began a run of ill fated “Perkys”. I don’t know who to blame. I believe we followed every directive in the budgie manual. The christmas after Perky IV hit hard onto the shredded newspaper my auntie arrived bearing a Mandarin orange crate. It made a strange whimpering noise. Out popped a seven week old lab/shepherd cross. Through hybrid vigour and with a trademark twinkle of mischief in his eye he lasted almost 14 years. He was “Thor” dog of thunder and turned out to be a strong mofo who took absolutely no shit -- had a heart of gold. My mom had named him appropriately and thus had broken the curse. Four budgies died for my sense of irony.