Ornith: Yo, Evian. Where are you going now?
Evian: I am just on my way to the pet shop. I want to buy a macaw.
Ornith: Since when have you been interested in parrots?
Evian: I want to teach it to talk. Probably someday it will make me famous.
Ornith: I don't get it. To raise a talking parrot and get famous?
Evian: Yeah. Parrots are the best birds to do that. I've seen news reports on several incredible parrots. I wish I can have one just like those. Then I will be interviewed for the deed of my super talking parrot.
Ornith: So how incredible are these parrots?
Evian: For example, Sir Winston Churchill's 104-year-old foul-mouthed parrot. It kept swearing a string of obscene anti-Nazi tirades learned from Churchill himself.
Ornith: Oh, come on! That one was a fake. Churchill's daughter denied that her father ever had a parrot like that.
Evian: Who cares? It was a great piece of news. Fake or not, you've heard of that, too. See?
Ornith: Alright. Why don't you just teach your parrot to say "Peace, Fight, Save China!" and pretend that it once belonged to Dr. Sun Yat-sen?
Evian: Actually, I've thought about that. But I think it won't work unless I can get a parrot aged about 150 or something. After all, Dr. Sun died much earlier than Churchill. But it's just too difficult to get a parrot that old…
Ornith: …What a pity… What other examples do you have for your incredible parrots?
Evian: How about this one? An Irish parrot! It was stolen and retrieved because it kept crying out "Help me! Help me!" and so a squad of armed officers stormed the building and rescued it. This is really cool. Certainly, you can teach every parrot to say "Help me!" but it's really amazing that this one knew when to use it and saved itself.
Ornith: Well, it's not that extraordinary. It may be that "Help me!" is the only sentence he could speak.
Evian: Oh, you don't like it? Then I guess you won't be interested in the Manchester-United-hating parrot. It's called Chelsea, and it emits a high-pitched screech every time Manchester United is mentioned. It was stolen, too. Pity they didn't teach him to say "Help me!" in the first instance.
Ornith: Poor birdie. It's probably in the hands of some fanatic M-U fans. Now it knows why people say "Silence is Gold."
Evian: Speaking of silence, I remember a parrot that was really awesome. It helped an autistic child learn to speak some simple words. It played the part of a speech therapist.
Ornith: That's really something to crow about for a bird.
Evian: Yeah, experts said that a child with severe learning disabilities may benefit from the bird's slow repetition of words. Now the child can say "night, night," "dad," "mum," "hello" and "bye." Sounds nothing to common people like us, but those utterances already meant a world to his parents.
Ornith: It just remains to be observed whether the boy could ever venture beyond those single-syllable words the parrot taught him. I hope he won't end up saying "Polly wants a cracker" all his life.
Evian: I hope not. That's too bad… Oh! I have to go now. It takes some time to find a really talented parrot. I must spare more time to look carefully in the pet shop.
Ornith: Ok. Have some nice interviews with your future pet. Good luck.
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