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We got Dummy from the pet store.  He was a beautiful white little budgie our parents surprised us with one evening in the late seventies.  They began by doing the grocery shopping which usually meant the four of us kids were sandwiched in the back seat of the car and told to behave while they got the errands done.  It was a simpler time and children could be left alone in the car to squabble over who was invading the other’s space, who was being a cry-baby, and who was in big trouble because someone was always “telling” It wasn’t a pleasant event for any involved. 

Except on that night we made a side trip and picked up a mysterious parcel.  We could not see it; it was kept deceptively secret and our parents waved away our squabbling with smiles and delicious innuendo.  Something was definitely up.  All we could hear was clanking of metal and ruffling of…. something…in the back of the station wagon.

Dad unveiled the covered cage and sat it on the table.  He was a beautiful little bird with white feathers covering his sprite-like body with blue under feathers showing through.  On the left side of his face, he sported a purple “dimple” right next to his curved beak.  It gave him the appearance of always smiling.

And you would be smiling too if you had landed in our family.  Dad immediately set out to teach the bird to talk.  My mother had decided to call the bird “Love” It was the seventies after all.  Imagine you are a bird meeting your family for the first time.  Four little faces and two adult ones glued to your cage watching your every movement.  Dummy regarded us with equal curiosity and truly must have wondered what he was in for. He proceeded to tap-dance around his cage not worried about us one bit, bobbing his head from side to side as if to say, “Cool digs!”

Mom crooned “Hello, Love.” in the gentle, singsong way she had when speaking to little things.  After the fiftieth or so repetition of this refrain and with the bird still silent and incredulous, head tilting to the side, my father produced a tape recorder and a blank tape.   He spoke “Hello, Love” into it.  He replayed it repeatedly until we thought we would go insane.

Something clicked inside that little bird brain and Dummy decided we humans needed entertaining at which point he jumped on his little swing in the center of his cage and began to swing furiously…. back and forth gathering momentum.  We were beginning to fear for our little feathered friend.

“Is this what you want me to do?”  He looked from one to the other gauging their reactions.  Seeing nothing he could recognize, in one desperate move Dummy turned upside down on his swing hanging by his three-pronged feet and began to swing, just as fast, just as furiously. 

Dad gave up, clicked off the tape recorder and sighed,  “You’re a dummy.” 

You’re a dummy,” the bird replied.  “Hello, Dummy.”  So the bird, Love (after that day called “Dummy-bird”) had the last word after all.