King Kizmo

I bid farewell  to an old friend last weekend.

No, somebody didn’t die thank goodness.

I am talking about my cockatiel.

His name was Kizmo and he had been with us for the past 15 years since my daughter received him for a present on her 9^th birthday.

Thankfully he didn’t kick the birdie bucket but was relocated to another household.

You see cockatiels bond with the first person they recognize as their owner and so all was hunky-dory when my daughter was home.

But when she went away to college things turned ugly on the bird front.

To be perfectly honest, Kizmo was never one of those birds that people coo at and nibble sweetly on your earlobes when they climb onto your shoulder.

He was known to challenge anything that came near his cage, including mammoth dogs, predatory cats and adorable children.

He despised most humans and communicated in hisses and scary “get away from me or I will peck your beady orbs out” noises and only tolerated me because I was the primary carrier of food and water to his bird domain.

The sign above his cage pretty much says it all.

He frightened away many annoying houseguests and entertained all of my childrens' schoolmates in his long reign as “King Kizmo.”

He was an “odd bird” and did not adhere to most of the universal birdie by-laws.

First of all he hated to fly.

It was not unusual to see Mr. Kizmo waddling down the hall checking out the indoor flora and fauna.

This was an hysterical sight and despite my loathing of this flying fascist always sent me into fits of laughter.

One morning while I was plunking away on my computer, I noticed him waddle past my door heading toward the bathroom.  A few seconds later he reappeared in my doorway and proceeded to mosey on over in my direction.  Considering our love/hate relationship this was puzzling to me and I was touched when he sauntered to my feet and with his birdy beak began to scale my pant leg like a tiny mountain climber.  “Aww, how cute!” 

He then proceeded to ascend my shirt and climb onto my arm. “Look, just like those clever birds at the zoo!”   

After reaching the shoulder summit he leaned over and promptly bit my neck flesh slinky as hard as his buzzard beak would allow! 

“You piece of #&&@@%$##!” 

This sniper snack attack caused me to leap to my feet shrieking and helicoptering my arms trying to get him off of me. 

He calmly fluttered to the floor and waddled out the door to scout out another victim.

Cretin…

He also LOVED to take showers and would put up with any ridiculous human who would indulge him by placing him on their finger and letting him douse his feathery locks in the warmth of the waterfall shower water.

When he was wet he looked like a withered number two combo plate from Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Without the coleslaw.

As I said before, my daughter was his first and only love and when she was little she sported long, flowing, curly hair.  After she went to college she traded in her curly-do for a more hip hairstyle and the first time she came home Kizmo apparently didn’t recognize her or at least hated the haircut and tried to pierce her nose like a bottle opener.  This made her very sad and all I said to her was, “Welcome to my Kizmo world.”

So Kizmo and I co-existed for many years with our agreement being that he wouldn’t bite me unless he just absolutely needed to and I wouldn’t munch on his birdseed when I was low on potato chips.

He was reduced to sitting in his cage all day, courting his seed dish and squawking at the mailman when he delivered our mail.

So imagine my happiness when my daughter told me that one of her co-workers had experienced a disastrous bird escape accident and lost most of her feathery flock!

This in itself was not to be celebrated but she mentioned to my daughter that she was down to one female cockatiel and that she was lonely……

They texted each other their EHarmony qualities and she decided that Kizmo should have the chance to experience true love after all these years!

So Kizmo was packed up, along with all of his cockatiel paraphernalia, and whisked away to meet his birdie blind date.

I took some farewell pictures of him right before they loaded him in the car.

He hissed at me.

And tried to peck me through the bars.

Just like old times….

At least he couldn’t reach my neck….

Sadly, when he was gone it was unusually quiet in the house.

But I’m happy for him.

I hope he enjoys his new lady friend.

Maybe she’ll go for a walk with him.

Or share a warm shower on a cold winter’s day.

Goodbye old friend.

I’ll miss you.

It’s been a lovely cruise.

Promise me you’ll keep up your nasty attitude.

Cuz there just aren’t enough feathery fussbudgets in the world.

…….I’m just sayin’