The first rule of living with a parrot: Don’t live with a parrot. The second rule of living with a parrot: Don’t live with a parrot. (See Fight Club if that doesn’t make sense.)
Let’s recap. The rules of living with a parrot are:
- Don’t live with a parrot
- Don’t live with a parrot
If you need a few reasons for why I’d recommend not living with a parrot, please refer to the following list:
- If you’re not a fan of making a lifelong commitment to a pet that will most likely outlive you, don’t get a parrot.
- If you’re not a fan of excruciating, crushing bites and puncture wounds to your fingers, face, lips, eyebrows, etc., don’t get a parrot.
- If you’re not a fan of pets that can scream at decibels so loud they can be heard in other zip codes, don’t get a parrot.
- If you’re not a fan of pets that wake you up at first light with the aforementioned screams (or by repeatedly shouting “HEY!”), don’t get a parrot.
- If you’re not a fan of pets that throw the majority of their food all over the floor, don’t get a parrot.
- If you’re not a fan of buying accommodations that can cost as much as an average mortgage payment, don’t get a parrot.
- If you’re not a fan of regular cage cleaning, don’t get a parrot (or, get an intern with tiny hands and lots of energy).
- If you’re not a fan of pets that have extreme mood swings that can result in the aforementioned excruciating, crushing bites to your body parts, don’t get a parrot.
- If you’re not a fan of soft, downy feathers that float all over your house sticking to furniture, rugs and clothes, don’t get a parrot.
- If you’re not a fan of having your key chains, buttons, pens, pencils, paper, furniture or anything else you like/need/use chewed to pieces, don’t get a parrot.
- If you’re not a fan of flying pets that can fly anywhere they want to in your home, leaving behind droppings, chew marks and the aforementioned soft, downy feathers that stick to everything, don’t get a parrot.
- If you’re not a fan of “baby-proofing” your home for a voraciously, ever-curious feathered baby, don’t get a parrot.
- If you’re not a fan of living with an animal that will have the emotional age of a toddler for all its life, don’t get a parrot.
- If you’re not a fan of animals living in your home that can be smarter than most humans, perhaps even yourself, don’t get a parrot.
- If you’re not a fan of hearing the same words/phrases/noises/gobbledygook over and over and over and over and over and over again until you want to go running down the street into traffic, don’t get a parrot.
- If you’re not a fan of buying toys just to watch them be destroyed in minutes over and over and over and over and over and over again, don’t get a parrot.
- If you’re not a fan of birds, feathers, beaks, or anything at all avian-related, don’t get a parrot.
However, if you are a fan of all of the above and of extremely challenging, wild animals that aren’t in any way domesticated but will fascinate you for an entire lifetime, then maybe consider getting a parrot.
