chat with a parrot

I’ve spent a lot of time chatting with my mother’s African Grey parrot, who is actually quite the obnoxious loudmouth. I grew up listening to him shriek, wolf whistle, sing (“happy birthday”) and curse, and would often spend a few minutes here and there going and actually talking to him. Sometimes he would say the funniest things in response – you could swear he understood exactly what you were saying. (And I expect he did understand a lot more than we gave him credit for).