Small Travels

I am now soaking up some rays in Richmond, IN.  Odd place for someone like me to be, considering it is a small, conservative, mostly ignorant sort of town.  Except they have quite a gay community.  Interestingly, the majority of the inhabitants that I have met seem to be non-judgemental (at least outwardly).  Admittedly, I haven’t met many people, either.  I have certainly seen some interesting signs, linking President Obama to socialism and a lot of other ignorant tripe.  More on that later, when I have pictures to prove it.

There is one place in this town that I absolutely adore.  A pet shop called Critters, where two friends of mine, Sebastian and Aaron, work.  They have many birds here with all sorts of personalities and sizes.  From quakers to maccaws, from sweet to “Don’t even look at me.”  Which brings me to the story of my interactions with one of these certain birds named Polly (cliche, I know).

Polly is an amazon, and hates me.  So there I am, with my back to this bird while she is out of her cage, petting another of the birds, when she starts slowly inching toward me.  Now I am paying attention to this, because I like my flesh right where it is.  She leans toward me slowly, and I look at her and she backs off a bit.  But only for a moment.  This is the fake out.  Back off and look at him until he turns his head again.

So this continues slowly for a few minutes, with me trying constantly to keep my eye on her while trying to pay attention to another bird.  Every time I catch her with her mouth just inches from my arm, she says something and backs off.  The problem here is that I am bad at multi-tasking and I am already afraid of this bird.  So then I feel something touch my shirt, and I jump around and say “No!”  To which Polly replies, “I’ll whoop your ass!”

Speechlessness.  Fear.  Oh snap.

I just tucked my tail and walked away.