My son Connor has been harping on the idea of getting a pet of his own for quite some time now. He really wanted a dog... “I’m gonna get a golden retriever and name him Baxter. I’m gonna take him everywhere with me. He’s gonna ride around in my truck with me... it’s gonna be great...”. Uh, not so fast, son. Baxter won’t be able to come with you when you go to work, and if he stays home with our two dogs, he’s gonna follow DAD around the house, not you. So the Baxter idea got put on hold.
When the kids were in elementary school, we adopted a guinea pig from a friend. My two kids loved the little guy, and they named him Fluffy because he was really like a large ball of fur. That is, balls of fur that also sported two additional, enormous balls of fur underneath. Yeah, I said it. Apparently my son was extra impressed with the size of the guinea pig’s gonads. He tells us now that whenever he described his pet guinea pig to his friends, he made sure to mention that Fluffy had some impressive anatomy. But I digress.... Instead of getting another guinea pig, Connor thought he should change it up and get a chinchilla. When we asked him, “Why a chinchilla?” His answer was, “Why NOT?” Why not? Hmmm, they’re nocturnal, they require specialized diets, they’re quite likely to bite and they REQUIRE dust baths... Ok, scratch that idea.
What he really wanted was a sun conure. Google "sun conure" and see all the fun videos of these beautiful parrots playing, head bobbing and just looking cute sitting on the shoulders of their owners. They really are beautiful birds - orange, yellow, red, with maybe some splotches of green. But you can't take getting a pet like this lightly - sun conures live 15-30 years in captivity. So if you get a sun conure, we told Connor, you probably won’t have to say goodbye to your friend for a long time, however, are you still going to be able to devote a lot of time to him when you have a girlfriend? When you get married and have kids? Hmmmm.... something to think about. Did you know that a sun conure screech is approximately 90-120 decibels? And they DO SCREECH - apparently it’s “in their nature.” “Nah, I’m gonna train mine not to screech.” Haha, right. “But, they SLEEP 12 hours a day!” “Right, son, but they most like to screetch at dusk and dawn. Dawn, you know, the time when the sun comes up? Don’t forget in the summer time, that would be somewhere around 5 AM. Your sister will kill you.” We spent weeks debating this pet choice. He loved the idea of a pet that would be around for a while. He was picturing this head-bobbing, playful symbol of pirate-hood sitting on his shoulder for the next 30 years. I suspect he considered buying an eye-patch and maybe a tricorn hat. He imagined his friends yelling at him to “get that loud mouthed parrot outta here!” We suggested a parakeet instead. They’re smaller, they don’t live long enough for you to have to make accommodations for them in your will, and they’re not nearly as loud....But then sense intervened - sort of. Connor sent me the text shown above: “I’ve determined I’ll settle for parakeets only if I can have a small armada of them.” Who refers to multiple parakeets as an armada? My son, that’s who. The only time I’ve ever heard the word “armada” in use, the word “Spanish” preceded it, and it was referring to ships, not birds. I guess he wanted to make a parakeet statement. Perhaps a parakeet kick line?
In case you’re wondering about the outcome of this story, Connor got ONE parakeet a few days ago. Connor named him Reggie, and he’s a cute little guy. Still a bit unsure of his new surroundings, but sure to settle in. And what about the armada? Well, after Reggie pooped in Connor’s shoe, then tried to fly and momentarily got stuck behind the dresser, I’m thinking Connor will be ok with just one parakeet for a while. Little Reggie can be an armada all on his own.
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