Dial-a-Bird
“We’ll see you in a couple hours, Billy,” Rhonda said to her white parrot, as she and her husband collected their jackets on their way out the door to see a play. “Be a good bird while we’re gone—no ripping up our loaves of bread in the kitchen, like that disaster last week.”
“Brawk,” Billy said, “Have a good night.”
“We will, but it will be an even better night if you don’t turn the kitchen into a pigsty. Goodbye, Billy.”
Rhonda closed the door, and Billy sat for awhile on his perch in the corner of the quiet living room. He began pondering different things he could do while his humans were gone, debating which ones would please them and be pleasing to him as well. He could have some seeds, he thought; but he had been eating seeds all day, boring. He could talk to Siri, their smart devices’ voice-activated assistant; but that grew tiresome fast. He could never understand the appeal to Rhonda of speaking to it all day—she must be easily amused, he thought.
What else could he do? He could go in the kitchen, there was always more interesting food in there. But wait, hadn’t Rhonda said not to go in there? No, he rationalized, she had just said not to rip up the bread again. Man, that had been fun last week, he remembered. But as long as he left the bread intact, he should be able to enter the kitchen. Rhonda would never even know he had gone in, that was how stealthy he would be.
Billy flew through the living room and dining room and into the kitchen. He looked around, adrenaline pumping, wanting to seek out a meal without the humans finding out. He flew up to the counter, where the bread had been last week, but to his relief it was gone—one less worry to obsess about. There was not much in its place, just an empty glass bowl, some coasters, nothing tasty.
Then, he looked at the top of the fridge and could just see over the edge some delicious looking peaches in a big brown bowl. His heart raced, as he imagined the sweet, juicy flavor entering his beak. He went into a passionate frenzy, spreading his wings out full and flapping them excitedly, as he half-flew, half-jumped off the counter. But just as he reached the top of the fridge, he encountered something he had not expected: a loaf of sliced white bread sat next to the peaches.
Unfortunately, by the time he saw the bread, it was too late. In his excitement, he bumped the loaf off the fridge, and it fell out of its sack, spilling bits of bread all over the floor. “Oh no,” Billy said, aloud. “Oh no, oh no, oh no. This is just what Rhonda said not to do.”
He flew down to the floor and tried to clean up the mess, using his wing as a broom. But he could not get the bread back into the bag. He tried eating the bread, but he did not want to eat too much of it—not enough nutrition value, he thought. He tried lifting the bag with his beak, but just as he was flying up to put it back on the fridge, it ripped and all the other slices fell out onto the floor, in a big, broken, pile. “Oh my God,” he said. “I’ve been a bad bird. What’s Rhonda going to say about this? The one thing she told me not to do, I did. How could I be so irresponsible? I don’t deserve to be her parrot.”
But just as he was becoming extremely depressed and hopeless, he remembered a service some passing sparrows had mentioned to him one day, while he was sitting in his cage outside. They said if he ever needed any cleaning or help around the nest (or cage, they added, out of respect)—anything from egg bedding to bird couples counseling—he should contact their owl friends’ caretaker service, Dial-a-Bird. When they told him this, he felt surprised: why would a sparrow be friends with an owl? Owls preyed on sparrows, last he checked, he told them. However, the sparrows had a ready answer: the owls were employing other birds as maids, including pigeons, falcons, crows, and of course, sparrows. As long as they were the owls’ employees, it was in the owls’ best interest not to eat them for dinner.
“I’m so glad I remembered this,” Billy thought. “I’ll bet they could clean this mess up faster than you could say crackers.’”
So, Billy flew into the dining room, where the family’s Apple HomePod sat on a counter. Billy thought, “Rhonda talks to this damn thing all the time, maybe now I’ll find out why she thinks it’s so alluring.” Aloud, he yelled, “HEY SIRI.”
When he heard the HomePod chime, he said, “Call Dial-a-Bird.”
The HomePod said, “Calling Dial-a-Bird,” and Billy heard it ring.
“All good so far, at least Siri understood me. Sometimes I worry she won’t make out my voice, because of the way I enunciate,” Billy thought.
“Hello, this is Lori,” he heard from the speaker. On the other end of the call, Lori, a female spotted owl, sat on three eggs in her nest high in a redwood tree, while she spoke through her Bluetooth connection on the company cell phone.
Billy said, “Yes, is this Dial-a-Bird?”
“You betcha. How can we help you tonight?”
“My name is Billy and I have a problem. A big problem, actually. My humans told me not to spill the bread on the floor of the kitchen while they were gone, and…”
“And you spilled the bread?”
“How did you know?”
“We get that a lot. Pets are always making messes they need cleaned up before their humans find out. You should have seen the poop-vomit fiasco we had last week involving two cockatiels. It took four of our most meticulous birds to clean it up, but we got it done, a half hour early—that’s the Dial-a-Bird way.”
“Okay, great, so how soon can you have somebird sent out? My humans are probably getting back in two, three hours tops.”
“No worries, we can send somebird out very soon. What’s your address?”
“It’s 1592 Crabtree Street.”
“Terrific, and before I make the order, could I just please have your credit card number?”
“I don’t have a credit card,” Billy said, “I’m a bird.”
“And I don’t have employees that work for free. I’m not a bumblebee. No card, no service.”
“Wait, don’t you accept other forms of payment? You’re an owl, right? Hey, I know, I’ve got something you’re sure to like, a whole loaf of it—what do you say to all the bread you can eat?”
“You said it yourself: I’m an owl. Owls are birds of prey. We eat other live animals. If you want to bribe me, at least think of my dignity.”
“Dignity, yes, yes, of course, okay, how about…” Billy thought as fast as he could, and then remembered his humans talking about a termite infestation they needed to treat. He continued, “Since I respect your dignity, I’m sure an owl of your caliber would settle for no less than a feast of termites, am I right?”
“Termites?”
“Yes, our house is infested with them. Send your birds and you will be filthy rich with termites.”
“Okay, now you’re speaking my language. I can have a bird sent out by 9:00 tonight.”
“9:00? Are you kidding? My humans could be home by then. I need you to send somebird now, or by 7:30, latest.”
“No problem, no problem, of course, we can try and make that happen. I’ll just need to speak with management. Could I place you on hold for a minute?”
“HOLD? Who the hell do you need to speak to? How hard is it to send a couple of your birds out?”
“A couple, you said? I’m afraid for non-credit card payments we can only send one bird to your residence. Will that be acceptable?”
“One bird? How is one bird going to be able to clean this up? I’m one bird! And I can’t do it. Could you at least send a seagull, if you’re just sending one bird? They have those strong gullets, they can eat up a lot of bread fast.”
“A seagull, hmm, yes, well,” Lori said, with hesitance. “Unfortunately, you see, it’s rather late in the day for us to contact our seagulls. Besides, we usually reserve them for large-scale, trash-related matters, and this is more of a domestic, indoor situation.”
“Excuse me?” Billy said, becoming huffy. “I offered to pay you a fortune in bugs, and you can’t do this for me? Haven’t you ever heard the saying, the customer is always right? Well, I’m the customer!”
“I’m sorry, we really appreciate your business, but there’s nothing I can do. It’s already past 7 p.m. Our seagulls request that we not contact them at this time, for all but the most serious, high-paying matters.”
“Serious, high-paying matters? What do you think this is? I’ve got bread on the kitchen floor, I’ve offered you a complete termite infestation, and this isn’t high-paying enough for you? Okay, fine, you want to play big time? We’ll play big time. What would you say if I throw in…a hamster?”
“A hamster? Well, it’s rather unusual, but, at least can you tell me how old this hamster is?”
“He’s six months old, juicy and young, a perfect tender morsel for an owl like yourself. He belongs to my humans, but if I leave his cage door open, they’ll just think he escaped.”
“That is enticing. All right, you run a good bargain. I’ll see what I can do. Have your front door open at 7:30, so that our bird can fly in. He’ll have your bread cleaned up in no time.”
“Your bird, you mean, your seagull, right?”
“Of course, of course. Thank you for your business. He’ll see you soon.”
“Grrr,” Billy said as the phone clicked off. “Unbelievable. If I didn’t know those sparrows so well, I’d think that owl was trying to rip me off. Oh well, it’s probably worth it if they can get this mess cleaned up.”
Billy flew back to his perch and turned around and around, full of nervousness and apprehension. He looked at the clock on the wall, and it read 7:05, 7:12, 7:20. Finally, at 7:25, he figured he should have the door open in case the seagull arrived early. He said, “Hey Siri. Unlock and open the front door.”
Siri said, “Unlocking and opening the front door.” The lock clicked and the door swung open. Billy went and stood on the porch, and soon it was 7:30, but still no seagull. He waited longer, another five, ten minutes, becoming angrier and angrier at the delay, and more and more scared that he had been jipped and no seagull was going to show up.
Then, after another painful 15 minutes, a green parakeet flew up to the porch. He said, “Hi, I’m Ramon, with Dial-a-Bird, I’m here to clean your kitchen.”
“You’re a parakeet. I specifically requested a seagull.”
“I know, but that’s okay, I’m really good at cleaning up messes. I poop a lot, but you know what they say, ‘The bird who eats his poop, cleans his poop.’”
“I’ve never heard that. But regardless, you’re like five inches tall with a throat the width of a pencil, how the hell are you going to do the work of a 1.5 foot tall seagull? Have you ever even eaten a loaf of bread before?”
“Never fear, I’m a professional. I just will have to ask you to pay upfront, we’ve had some issues lately with clients not coming through with their payments. I understand you’ll be paying in termites and a hamster today?”
“No, I’m not paying you anything, until you show me you’re capable of cleaning up this bread.”
“Certainly, of course, let me just fly back over there and get my…” Ramon said and flew off slowly over the lawn, then flapped much faster, and then took off over the tops of the neighbors’ houses.
“Damn it, he’s gone,” Billy said. “I haven’t waited all this time for nothing, I’m calling Lori back and giving her what-for.”
He went back into the living room and called Dial-a-Bird. The owl answered and said, “Hello, Lori speaking.”
“Hello Lori, yes, this is Billy, you just wasted over 40 minutes of my time waiting for you to send a seagull out, and what did I get? An unqualified parakeet. This is ridiculous, you either send out a seagull right now, or I’m reporting you to the Better Bird Business Bureau.”
“Okay, okay, sorry, our wires must have gotten crossed. I’m so sorry that parakeet did not meet your expectations, we’ve actually had some problems with him lately. Tell you what, I’ll send out a seagull in the next 10 minutes, and you can keep your hamster. Deal?”
“All right, that’s a deal, but you better keep your word this time.”
“No worries. We’ll see you soon.”
“Scraaaaawwwk!” Billy yelled at the HomePod in frustration.
The HomePod replied, “I don’t understand that.”
“Fuck you, Siri,” Billy said and stormed back out onto the front porch to wait.
In only a few minutes, he watched as a strange-looking white and grey bird ambled up the sidewalk to the porch. “Hello,” the bird said, “Are you Billy?”
“Yeeeessssss,” Billy said, slowly.
“I’m a seagull, Dial-a-Bird sent me.”
“If you’re a seagull, may I ask why you didn’t fly here?”
“That’s a good question, my friend. I actually recently broke my right wing, chasing a vole in the Hawkshire Forest, and I’m currently unable to fly. No worries, though, I’m able to eat, and that’s what matters to you, right?” the bird said. As he spoke, his beak flapped open and shut strangely, like a mechanical wooden puppet. His grey wings lay lifelessly at his side. “So then, let’s get to the bread.”
“Hold on, seagulls don’t go as far inland as Hawkshire Forest. And most seagulls scavenge, they don’t usually hunt voles. Hunters are more like…owls,” Billy said, and dove at the bird, pulling voraciously at his wings with his beak. In just a few seconds, Billy ripped off the seagull costume and discovered an owl underneath.
“How dare you?” the owl said.
“How dare me? How dare YOU? You come here, pretending to be a seagull, when I fully agreed to pay you more than a reasonable rate. You tried to deceive me.”
“Excuse me? You’re the one who should be ashamed of stripping my clothes off. Have you no modesty? Are you prejudiced against seagulls or something, you gull-hater?”
“YOU’RE NOT A SEAGULL,” Billy shouted.
“And you’re not worth my time,” the owl said and flew away.
But this time, Billy felt determined not to let the owl escape. He flew into the air and followed the owl back to a forest of redwood trees. He watched as the owl flew into a nest, and he flew right into the nest as well, startling the owl and his wife, who sat on three eggs. “Billy?” the female asked.
“Lori, so it’s you in the feathers. I see I’ve stumbled into Dial-a-Bird Headquarters. Or should I say, ‘Dial-a-Beatdown’?”
“What?” the male owl said. “Dial-a-Beatdown? What do you mean? You strip me of my dignity, you insult my honor, you invade my family’s privacy, and now you’re going to assault me in my own nest?”
“That’s right, you son of a bitch,” Billy said and began pecking the owls. He flew into a fury and cracked all three of their eggs, spewing shell and yolk all over the place. He said, “Now you’ll see what it’s like to rely on Dial-a-Bird to clean up your nest.”
With that, Billy flew home. He knew he would be in trouble with his humans, but at least he felt avenged in regard to the owls. Meanwhile, in the nest, Lori said to her husband, “Maybe we should go back to hunting mice.”
Nicholas Bridgman holds two bachelor’s degrees from U.C. Berkeley in Rhetoric and Ecology. His fiction has appeared in Ginosko Literary Journal, Please See Me, Indiana Voice Journal, and Pilcrow & Dagger, and he is the author of the novel, A Character in Reality. He currently lives in Southern California.
