Saturday, December 12, 2009

Pigwidgeon as Pygmalion

The Sober Husband has been very sarcastic about my African grey parrot's failure to speak. Pigwidgeon spoke on one memorable occasion, when desperate for attention (the girls and I were ignoring her while we ate lunch), she said, "Hello" in a sweet, piping voice, and we fawned over her for hours. She never spoke again.

"My parrot can talk," the Sober Husband snarks. "Yours is stupid."

We researched the matter and learned that most African greys don't talk until 1-2 years old. Therefore Piggle is not delayed in her speech. However, I tasked bored Lola with working on Piggle's speech. Seven year-old Lola took this assignment very seriously and went off to write down some phrases to teach the parrot. Returning, she pulled up a chair next to Pigwidgeon's play tree and, in a very serious voice, intoned certain phrases over and over again, including notably, "[The Sober Husband] was wrong. [The Sober Husband] was wrong."

5 comments:

hughman said...

i'll be curious as to what else lola will teach. i suspect long diatribes against iris as well as more sidewalk theology.

Drunken Housewife said...

She also wants to teach Pigwidgeon to say "toilet. Say 'toilet.' T-O-Y-I mean I-L-E-T. Toilet."

Anonymous said...
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Silliyak said...
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Anonymous said...

You could always tell SH that Pidge is not verbose, therefore, "saving her words for a conversation of value with someone OF value". That might stop the snarks....

Kat