So I have this bird. His name is Casey. Casey is…well…he’s very, very loud. So loud, in fact, that if you walk outside and down the street, oftentimes you can still hear him screaming. A lot of people that own birds would wonder, well, why don’t you just ignore him when he screams?

I do. It’s my dad that doesn’t seem to understand the concept of operant conditioning. See…in my dad’s mind, this face:

combined with loud, high pitched, annoying noises means ‘Casey is starving and therefore must be given a banana/cupcake/one of my french fries right now before he wastes away to nothing’.

As a result my child…er…I mean parrot…has learned to be very, very obnoxiously loud. To the point where he screams during TV, he screams during dinner, he screams any time anyone comes into the room. And you know what? I swear to God my dad is deaf because he doesn’t seem to care all that much.

See…the deal with Casey is that when I adopted him, I was supposed to get an apartment in a year or two, then take the bird with me when I moved…but how can I split up such a duo? I mean, come on, they have a BOND. Sure, it involves screaming, bloodshed, and as one can imagine Casey’s gotten rather fat…but hey, as long as he has a home, right?

So a few nights ago, I was in Watertown. Now, watertown is a perfectly nice little town in which my friend lives. I am not threatened by watertown at all. As a matter of fact, I quite like it.

What am I threatened by?

The ride home takes me directly through central square, which, for those of you who don’t know, is one of the seedier areas of Cambridge, MA. Now, normally, I get off the bus, get on the pavement, then skitter AS QUICKLY AS I CAN toward the nearest subway station.

Well, that night my plan was foiled. Not only was it 10:30 at night on a Friday, but I really, REALLY had to pee. I don’t even know why, maybe it was the extra-large redbull I had a half an hour before or the multiple cans of mountain dew I had consumed, but I really had to pee.

So I took a step off the bus and booked it for the nearest bathroom, which just happened to be inside probably the most disgusting Wendy’s I’d ever seen. The door to the inside was locked—something I always hated—but to my great relief it appeared as if the previous occupant had left it unlocked, and so I pushed and stumbled in.

The next thing I knew some lady turns—mind you this bathroom has multiple stalls—and shouts, probably as loud as she can, ‘DON’T YOU KNOW YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO KNOCK BEFORE YOU COME INTO THE BATHROOM?!’

I blinked a few times and took a careful step back from this monster of a woman, clearly frightened, and I noticed before long why. Well, it was sort of hard to miss the bent-up spoon, lighter, and needle placed carefully—and incorrectly—in her left forearm.

Now, I’m no drug dealer, but I know from some medical training that you don’t take a vein at a 45 degree angle, you take it parallel, and this woman definitely was doing it wrong.

I didn’t say anything though. I just got out of there.

Moral of the story: Central Square not only has drug addicts, it has dumb drug addicts. Win-win.

Comments

So I just set up this tumblr. As most people say in their first tumblr post, I haven’t the foggiest what I should write about. I suppose I could fill this with stories, or comics, or perhaps things I spot around my day, but all of that would seem irrelevant. All the same, that’s probably what it will wind up filled with.

I start work on Monday, which is both a relief and a challenge. At the moment I’m suffering from a bout of bronchitis, and my lungs object any sort of movement. It doesn’t matter much I guess, by Monday I’ll probably be better, and then I can stop being bored and do something for a change, which is nice. Of course, one can always wish :)

Comments