Trevor's Tales

It’s my birthday today. I’m Fifty Five, it doesn’t sound so bad when you say it quickly...hmmm, 55, OK, I lied, it does sound bad.
I got up early at the dragon’s request to open cards and pressies. I got £20 from the mother in law, £20 from my brother and sister in law, £20 from the girls,(Dogs, I sent that one, but don’t tell anyone) and a bottle of my favourite Issey Miyake aftershave from the dragon. The kids will be round later with their cards and pressies, I’ll get some more smellies from my son ( do you think they are trying to tell me something) and a book from my daughter. I know because I get the same every year.

[More:]

I doubt now that I will ever get I really want. Dropping hint after hint for over 30 years has got me nowhere. All the notes I’ve stuck on the fridge over the years have been in vain. My arguments, sometimes brilliantly engineered, have fallen on deaf ears. I’ve almost given up hope of ever getting one.

Almost but not quite; I’ve a nag or two left in me yet.

My dream isn’t a Ferrari or the blonde from strictly come dancing, although she’d do at a pinch. It isn’t a trip to Disneyland Paris, Alton Towers, or a day out on the race track at Brands Hatch.
I don’t care for diamonds and I have no wish to join the Russian space program as a paid guest. Ny special gift could be bought locally and wouldn’t really cost the earth.

I’ve always wanted a parrot.

I don’t care what sort it is, what colour it is, how tatty it looks, or how much it costs. I’ll willingly chip in myself for it. (I do anyway with the dog’s gift, but shhhhh.)
I often sit and dream of me and the squawky one practicing witty ripostes. I think this is the main reason the dragon has resisted all these year. She thinks I’ll teach it rude songs, and worse. Where she gets this idea from I don’t know...

Actually, maybe I do know. I think it’s because I made the fatal error of telling the tale of an old friend’s parrot. I used to hang around with him as a teenager, (the kid, not the parrot.) The bird was a great talker and mimic who was forever getting my mate into trouble. The final straw came when it was his mother's turn to hold a charity group meeting at her house. Several elderly ladies including the chair of the W.I. were sat around chatting and sipping tea waiting for the vicar’s arrival. As he stepped into the room the parrot squawked, ‘knickers off girls the vicars here.’
He was gone the same afternoon, my friend was devastated, it had taken him 3 months to teach the bird those words. He wasn’t even there when the speech was delivered. He came home to find he was an ex parrot owner. They had some sort of bird for dinner that night, I remember him telling me he was worried he had eaten his parrot.
This one distant event has kept me parrot-less all these years. The dragon is terrified the thing might give a rendition of ‘Eskimo Nell’ while she entertains her Brownie pack colleagues. She comes out with all the usual excuses, the mess, the feathers, the dogs going mental, avian flu. But it’s the fear of an embarrassing recital that stops her giving in to my demands. I know it and so does she.