Motek, The Mindfulness Bird

That is, until he fell into a depression

Photo by on

The first time I met Mimi — we were sizing each other up to see if we were roommate material — she greeted me at the door with a yellow-eyed parrot plunked on one of her shoulders. In between asking friendly questions and showing me around her well-appointed apartment, she cooed at the parrot and invited me to admire him as well. He looked like he was wearing a shiny green bib (V-shaped) over a yellow onesie. He stood maybe six inches high.

Immediately I grasped that Mimi and the parrot were a packaged deal, and I hesitated. See, my last roommate had kept a parrot too, and I couldn’t stand him. He was loud and obnoxious, squawking ceaselessly and demandingly, for no reason at all except to irritate me. Still, the bird I was looking at seemed all right, so I accepted the unspoken condition — thou shalt tolerate my parrot — because I liked Mimi and her apartment, too.

The bird was a Senegal parrot, which meant he’d never become a talker. He did learn to say his name, though — Motek. And “Bye Bye.” Also “Hi.”

Don’t think he was unintelligent, though. Motek may not have talked, but this bird sure knew how to mimic sounds. In fact, that’s what Senegals are known for. He possessed a range, a whole encyclopedia of noises. He could make the sound of hairspray…