I don’t know what I was thinking when I named him Fluffy. It seemed like a nice, innocuous name. Fluffy the Parakeet. What’s wrong with that?

He hates it. In fact he hates me. He just glares at me from his cage. He is plotting something. I think he wants me dead.

“Get over your ‘writer’s block’ big shot?” He asked as he adjusted himself on his perch. Yes. Fluffy talks. Please don’t ask. I think he once belonged to Stephen King.

When he knows he has attracted my attention he repositions himself squarely over last week’s column where it adorns the bottom of his cage. (Fluffy will accept no newsprint flooring if my column and photo aren’t upturned so he can read, and register his editorial views, on each week’s copy.)

“I’m working on it.” I sighed.

Parakeets make a really nasty sound when they smirk.

He kicked open the door of his cage and flew over to the monitor. He perched on top of it and glared at me some more. Then, because he knows how it infuriates me, he dug his beady little talonettes into the frame of the screen and leaned slowly forward while tucking his head under his breast. He then began reading the screen upside down. His head carriaged back and forth as if he were eating an ear of corn. After three passes he looked up at me abruptly.

“You don’t got much here.”

He delights in tormenting me with bad grammar.

“I said I’m working on it!” I snapped.

“I can help you know.” He said. “My Great Uncle Elmo worked in the trade. He was a printer’s devil. He was personally responsible for revolutionizing the typesetting trade.

“Oh really? Your Uncle Elmo the Parakeet revolutionized the typesetting trade? What did he invent?”

“The para-graph.” Fluffy snickered.

He flew up onto the frame of my half-glasses and turned back to regard the screen right side up from my point of view, literally. His tail feathers rubbed against the red patch on my forehead that he has worried there over time.

“Doesn’t look much better from here. What’s it going to be about?” He wanted to know.

“I thought I’d write something about the power crisis in California.” I said.

“Yawn.” Fluffy didn’t do it. He said it.

“You have a better idea?” I asked.

“I think you should write about my great grandfather Amos. He served in World War II you know.” Fluffy said.

“Para-trooper?” I chided.

“Para-legal.” Fluffy could not contain himself and actually snorted. I wondered at the time if that didn’t hurt his beak.

“You aren’t helping.” I told him.

“Oh? Is it help you’re needing?” He said, taking off again in a raucous flap of wings. He landed on the printer, just at the edge of the well, teetered there and let himself fall over backwards down into the abyss. Several seconds passed in silence. Finally his voice echoed from inside.

“That hurt.” Fluffy announced in monotone.

“It did not.” I told him as I frowned straight ahead at the screen, fighting a maniacal impulse to hit the print button.

“Yes it did. Dial 911.”

“I’m not going to dial 911 because a parakeet fell into my printer.”

“Not human 911...bird 911.” They send a specialist.

“Let me guess. Para-medics?”

He actually guffawed before poking his head up like a prairie dog. How he manages to grin with a fixed bill is beyond me.

So taken with his wit, Fluffy was soon bellowing with gales of laughter. Seeing my opportunity I snatched my ball cap from its hook and netted him right there in the printer. He was too amused with himself to care. Lost in laughter, he was reduced to beating his wings on the printer casing. I think I saw tears rolling down the sides of his beak.

I returned him to his cage and hung his towel over it so he might be transported to the Arms of Morpheus and leave me in peace.

No such luck. Did you ever try to write on deadline with muffled bird giggles mocking you from under a terry cloth bonnet?

When you do, this is what you get.