A day in the life of a person with a parrot.

Living with Felix, the African grey.

“Stop.”

Felix tosses my toothbrush holder with toothbrush into the sink. It doesn’t crash, it bounces. I have a blue rubber toothbrush holder that is a shark head with an mouth open. Like the shark in the “Jaws” movie poster. I bought because it’s a rubber shark head with a big open mouth like the shark in the “Jaws” movie poster. I’m taking a shower. Felix is working hard to throw everything on the vanity, into the sink. It’s a race to the finish.

Felix laughs at me while I hold my head outside the shower. A disembodied dripping admonition. His personal joke. His laugh is a George W. Bush chuckle. ‘Heh heh heh heh’ then fartsound, or raspberry, if you’re not crass. I have no idea if George W. Bush did the fartsound part.

The glass soap dish scrapes along the vanity top as Felix pulls and pushes it to its doom. Porcelain pings in the sink. The rubber shark head slowed it’s slide. Plastic hand soap dispenser. Wooden hair brush. Lotion bottle. The pile in the sink is tumbled and stacked high enough for him to fuss with the arrangement of items he found filled with criminality. They needed to be gotten under control. He’s run out of things to toss in. Now he whistles while he works and puts himself on a mentally forged repeat. “Time…