Monitor decorations

I, my friends, am a woman of action. I see something, decide I want it, and go get it. Such was the case with the great whistling cockatiel fascination of 2008. Unfortunately, none of my local pet stores carried birds that came pre-loaded with sound bits, so I had to buy an empty one and try to upload selections to it myself. So far I have been successful only at getting him to step up onto my finger on command, and even then only when he's already come voluntarily out of his cage. He refuses to be told what to do in his cage and still bites ever so nastily at the inter-species olive branch that is my right index finger. I can't blame him, I guess. I'd be pretty annoyed if somebody walked into my house and started ordering me around. But once he's outside his cage he is a bundle of somewhat bitey, sometimes jerkfaced fun!

I mean, check out the picture! He likes to sit on the screen of my laptop while I work! It's like having a bossy little four-ounce supervisor who never speaks but just stands there yelling, "Get back to work!" with his hateful, judgmental eyes. As you can see from the aforementioned picture, I work on the couch in my pajamas in front of the television, so I do kind of need the motivation.

Disagreeable personality aside, Chauncy makes a pretty good monitor decoration. He's super cute with his orange cheek patches, but he throws in some emo spunk with his wicked awesome fauxhawk/pompadour (channeling the totally hot Brandon Flowers and Morrissey, respectively). The bird's got style, you have to admit. "But, Rachel," you're saying. "Aren't you afraid he'll poop on your computer or your lap?" To which I'll just chuckle and remind you that I am much cleverer than a simple, literally bird-brained cockatiel. To enjoy a poop-free cockatiel adornment for yourself, all you need to do is slide a paper towel or piece of paper (I use those junk-ad mailers) under your computer so that a few inches of it are hanging out over your lap and under your bird's rump (I use a lapboard to keep my computer from getting too hot). Then tilt your monitor back ever so slightly, so if your bird does get vengeful and decide to poop, it will fall on the disposable paper. Ha. Sucker.

Now don't say I never taught you anything.