Too many birds for too long?

by: Michael Marcotrigiano, Montague, Massachusetts
michael@exoticfinches.com

Someone once asked me "How many birds can a person with a full time job handle?" "How do I know it when it has gotten out of control?" Since then, I’ve asked myself the same question as I spend countless hours "working the birds". So, I’ve come up with a quick list that will allow you to assess your involvement with your birds. If you can relate to more than ten of these situations you may be in over your head. Read and enjoy.

You know you have too many birds for too long…

• When your idea of a quiet evening at home changes from a bottle of fine wine and candlelight to a bottle of Pedialyte and a Vita-Lite.
• When you rush out to buy your vanity license plates because you’re convinced that "INDIGO-BUNTING" might already be taken.
• When you become so friendly with your veterinarian that you go bowling together on Friday nights.
• When you undress at night and collect enough seed hulls from inside your "undies" to mulch your vegetable garden.
• When your favorite food switches from a medium-rare filet mignon to a well-done hard boiled egg.
• When you family eats 99-cent pesticide-laden lettuce but your birds get the "Certified Organic".
• When an eye surgeon spends an hour removing a half a cup of seed hulls from beneath your eyelids.
• When you have two copies of your daily newspaper delivered because one is not enough to line your cage trays.
• When you feel less "comfy" on a therapeutic mattress than you do on a circular bale of hay.
• When you try to auction your dirty bird papers as "fine examples of conceptual art".
• When one house fly in the pantry "grosses you out", but it’s perfectly OK to have live mealworms in your refrigerator.
• When your spouse wakes up only to see you sleeping with your head tucked under your armpit.
• When you are well known in the art community for your cuttlebone scrimshaw.
• When you can reliably close-band a strawberry finch baby while mud wrestling.
• When you start pre-chewing breakfast for your children.
• When there is nothing left to do in the bird room but you go back in just to make sure they are still there.
• When, without your spouse being aware, you legally change your family’s surname to "Finch".
• When you describe the shape of a Border Canary as "kinda sexy".
• When you start sweeping the bird room by grasping the broom handle with both feet.
• When you actually believe that newly hatched finches look beautiful.
• When you need to replace the bird room HEPA filter each night before bedtime.
• When your UPS deliveryman, now with the hernia, refers to you as "the jerk that keeps getting bird seed delivered".
• When you bathe with your finches.
• When you have joined so many bird listservers that your 2-gigabyte hard drive fills each day with emails.
• When you hire a cleaning service to clean your house because you hate it so much but you don’t mind scraping poop off of perches for two hours.
• When you spouse greets you at the door dressed in nothing but Saran Wrap and you say "not tonight dear, I need to add egg food to the babies’ cages".
• When you send your children off to school with egg food and veggie sandwiches.
• When you find it pleasurable to breathe in feathers.
• When you have enough "white dust" in your house to use as fake snow on your Christmas tree.
• When your angry spouse tells you that they would rather that you have an extramarital affair than add one more birdcage to the living room.
• When you ask your ABBA sales rep "How much for a cubic yard of grit?"
• When you enter your bird room as a brunette and exit with gray hair.
• When you accidentally diaper your infant in newspaper.
• If your children prefer collecting feathers to Pokeman.
• When you are fairly sure you can convince your HMO to pay for the invermectin.
• When you put both of your children in one bedroom because you "need space to expand the bird room"
• When you try to seduce your spouse by combing your hair forward, fluffing up your pajamas, and jumping up and down on the bed.
• When you are so afraid to leave the birds with someone else, that your annual vacation consists of one weekend.
• When that weekend vacation is spent in someone else’s bird room.
• When the most common phrase uttered by your family is "he’s in the bird room"

P.S. I think I have too many birds!

Last modified: February 21, 2005
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