"I knew that was going to happen!" Dad was psychic. He always said that immediately following an accident that involved something being broken or splashed with indelible ink. I often wondered why he never intervened if he knew ahead of time.

"Do you think I'm a rich man?" He yelled.

Experience told us that with these types of questions, it was best to remain silent.

"You must think money grows on trees!"

My sister and I, exchanged a teenage glance, followed by a roll of the eyes. Trees again. It was like the "Twilight Zone". The Mynah bird we had gone to great trouble and expense to get my mother for Christmas, the only present she wanted, had cleverly escaped from the cage and found refuge in the Dogwood tree in our backyard. I suppose we deserved the rant, since we were the ones who were foolish enough to let it escape.

It took signing away all future allowances, and a considerable amount of whittling away at Dad's sanity to convince him to go to the mall and spend the money for another bird.

After several go-rounds, we finally found a parking space on the outskirts of JC Penney. It was a long walk through the parking lot into the congested bowels of the mall.

Burl Ives, singing a "Holly Jolly Christmas," was being piped in from all directions and throngs of shoppers swarmed like ants on a Winchell's donut.

In the pet shop, the mishmash of odd animal smells and heat became extremely unpleasant, quashing further our already dampened holiday mood. Dad weaved forcefully through the crowd with the birdcage held above his head to avoid bumping it against other shoppers, trailing pellets and sloshing hazy water from the cup onto his shoulder. My sister and I wandered in a different direction and squeezed behind the bags of litter and bedding, to pretend not to be with him.

Dad shot us a harsh glance. We stifled a groan and joined him. The pet shop owner directed us to his one and only, get it before it's gone, two hundred fifty-dollar Mynah, and gave us his two hundred and fifty dollar sales pitch to go with it. "Mynahs are prolific talkers, they can learn up to one hundred words, for more than two thousand years the Mynah bird has been sacred in India, blah, blah, blah…"

A half-hour later, we were on our way home with our replacement, and mom was none the wiser. Although, we were sure Dad would never allow us to forget the one-bird- for-the-price-of-two adventure.

My sister and I stared at the Mynah through the bars of the cage. He wasn't very shiny and the bright yellow wattles on his nape seemed too floppy. His beady golden eyes were bright, but he watched us with suspicion. It was clear he didn't trust us.

In spite of all the trouble, I will always cherish the surprised look on Mom's face when we presented her with a real live, Mynah bird on Christmas day.

She immediately began teaching him to talk. Mom was never good at assigning names to pets, so her bird went without one. For lack of a better name, we all began calling the mynah… Byrd.

Byrd listened intently to the nonstop, "I can talk, can you fly?" phrase. He dutifully watched my mother as her lips carefully formed each word. My sister and I had different ideas about what we wanted him to say, so we began repeating phrases like, "sock it to me," or, "here come de judge," and, "you bet your bippy."

Christmas came and went, and so did half of the New Year. Finally, one day he spoke. My mother was alone with him at the time. She said she got chills. Strangely though, the first words he said were, "shut up!" It was obvious that Byrd really liked saying that. He said it so often. In fact, he didn't just say it. He had the perfect mannerism to go with it. He would lunge forward on his perch, while squawking his two-word repertoire.

"Shut up!" Was his answer to any question.

"Have a grape?"

"Shut up!"

"Hello."

"Shut up!"

"Pretty bird."

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

Looking back, it was rather predictable that he would learn to say that, since it was the central exchange between my sister and me.

Mom didn't do such a good job in the cage-cleaning department either. Somehow, I became the reluctant bird keeper. Not only did Byrd adore saying shut up, but he also seemed to take great delight in attacking any hand that entered his territory, namely mine. I can still see my soft flesh being pinched tightly in his orange bill. His head jerked from side to side, talons clawing, wings flapping like a fierce bird of prey.

The red marks on the back of my hand resembled some sort of pox, which I carefully kept hidden for fear of being quarantined from school.

One summer evening, my sister and I were up late playing a game of Yahtzee. I looked over and noticed that Byrd's water dish was empty. Prankster that I was, instead of giving him water, I poured him a trough full of beer. I really didn't think he would drink it, but he must have been thirsty and eagerly began dipping his bill and tipping his head back to allow the cold beer to dribble down his throat. He drank it all. Minutes later, Byrd wasn't able to stand upright on his perch and after several failed attempts to keep his balance, he settled in the bottom of his cage for the rest of the night.

I felt horrible, and prayed that he would be all right. I never saw a bird throw up like that before. My sister slapped me on the arm and accused me of contributing to the delinquency of a mynah.

Byrd looked ghastly the next day, but bravely survived his hangover.

When I inspected his appearance, I asked, "Do you need some help?"

And he said the only thing he had ever learned—"Shut up!"