Perhaps Polly Wants A Cracker

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I’ve been ridding myself of stuff. All sorts of stuff. I don’t want to dust it anymore. Not that I am a dust freak. I don’t spend that much time dusting. Maybe once a month or so in either direction. But I want to do even less of it.

And some of the stuff or most of the stuff was stuff that was given to me. I don’t talk to most of those people anymore. Not sure why. Also not sure why I was keeping some little knick knack or small bottle of jewel colored glass. But I was.

I’m not now. Though I did keep the plastic parakeet.

Polly. Or Polly is what you called her. I’m not sure it was a her. Can plastic be a gender? And if what is true in most birds is true in parakeets especially of the plastic kind that the more vibrantly colored ones are males, then Polly is not a she.

She’s green. With a little bit of yellow.

You gave her to me for Christmas. She arrived several weeks or months, I can’t remember even though it was just last year, after Christmas. She’s battery operated and even came with a battery. You were happy to hear that.

She’s motion activated. At least I think that is why she moves her head and tweets. Though she often does it when no once has entered or left the room. I think perhaps she is sensitive to the air conditioner cycling on and off.

I got used to it. The tweeting whenever.  Others noticed. Not that there have been that many people who have encountered her. My mother and I think my neighbor. But when Polly tweets they hear it and ask about it.

Then I have to explain how it was a gift from you and why I’m not sure why you would get me such a gift. A joke, perhaps? I shrug as I say it.

But I know the real reason.

You told me you got me the plastic parakeet so I wouldn’t be lonely. We hadn’t seen each other in almost a year when you gave it to me. And it seems unlikely we’ll see each other again.

Somehow, I am unable to tell people that.

And I don’t know which is sadder: That you think a plastic parakeet would cure loneliness or that I knew it wouldn’t.

10 thoughts on “Perhaps Polly Wants A Cracker”

  2. Nancy said it just right in her comment.

    I don’t tweet, but I do blog and I do send you cyber hugs. It’s good to see you writing here, Sandy.

  5. I would love to get rid of more of my stuff.
    Sometimes, that’s the only way I’ll come across something from someone from the long ago…

    • So sorry for the slow response to your comment, Guapo. I’m not sure why I’m just now reading it so many days after you posted it. I wish I was one of those techno genius coding types and while I think I might be able to master it and in my only computer science class way back when I was told I was a “natural” at flow charting (WTF?), I truly have no desire to do it. But be that as it may and it often is, I found myself thinking about who had given me each knick knacky thing as I put it in a box to give away. And part of my rational for ridding myself of it was they will never know I no longer have it, assuming they can remember they gave it to me.

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