Photo by kat wilcox from Pexels
It wasn’t even a dark and stormy night. At least that may have heightened my sense of foreboding and despair for what was about to come.
Rather, it was a quiet evening in the Cole household. Everyone was just where they were supposed to be. I was in my office working on the computer. The cats were unaccounted for, which is normal. Reggie was on his perch on the kitchen counter. Bru was in his wheelchair at the dining room table.
Or so I believed.
As we pieced the story together later, THE HEIFER was eating treats from her bowl on the floor, which entails having her rotund body placed directly in front of the dish and her tail straight out behind her.
Apparently at that same time, Bru decided to back up in his wheelchair into the main part of the kitchen. In doing so, he rolled over THE HEIFER’s tail. Now this has happened before and is documented here in this very Blog. But for some reason, THE HEIFER was having a sensitive tail day or Bru parked the chair right on the appendage or whatever. Either way, THE HEIFER let out an ear-splitting screech, the likes that have only been heard from the bowels of Hell. I know this because I have these dreams…
I immediately knew that it was THE HEIFER due to the tone and timbre of the sound and I also knew that whatever happened had occurred close to the floor. She is not one to make her way UP that often. Putting two and two together, the answer was simple. She had once again been betrayed by The Staff and someone had run over her tail with a wheelchair.
I jumped out of my chair and ran right into her as she streaked along the baseboard, making her way to some stinky little hideout she had in the first bedroom. I scooped her up and we sat in my chair in the office, verbally bashing Bru and his wheelchair. I checked her tail over carefully and everything seemed intact, but what the hell do I know? She didn’t seem like she was in any pain and she happily snuggled in closer, laying upside down in my arms while we cheerfully discussed revenge tactics. She even came up with a few that included Abby, who I know was clearly not involved. I let her go on, because she had been betrayed yet again and this was good therapy.
I wish that everything had ended there, but it didn’t.
Bru called from the kitchen and said I needed to come right away. I told him I was cuddling THE HEIFER and it was a bad time (Men – will they ever get it?). He said, NO, YOU NEED TO COME OUT HERE RIGHT AWAY.
I put THE HEIFER down and she stalked from the room, tail in the air and in seeing that, I was confident that there were no lasting effects of her injuries.
As I walked into the kitchen, Bru pointed to the floor and I could see that Reggie, our parrot, was down there, just walking in circles with his big stinky feet. Reggie can’t fly so I was able to surmise that the only way he ended up on the floor was that he toppled from his perch when THE HEIFER let out her banshee screech.
Then Bru said the words I dread to hear on any level:
Bru: HE’S BLEEDING.
Me: WHO’S BLEEDING? REGGIE? FROM WHAT?
Bru: I HAVE NO IDEA.
And when I looked closer it appeared Reggie was leaving little blood trails with one of his feet. Awesome. There are two places on a bird that can bleed heavily. One is the beak and the other is a toenail. I speed-dialed my Bookie and put my money on the toenail.
When I picked him up and put him back on his perch, he was bleeding pretty good. Both feet were red and I had this fleeting thought of quickly doing up some greeting cards with bird feet stamps before the blood dried, but that would be inappropriate. That is why I keep those thoughts to myself and just double my meds from time to time.
Okay, so the bird is bleeding out, THE HEIFER is on the phone to her lawyer, Bru is watching TV, and Abby is lurking. I grab a towel from the closet, make it all fluffy and deposit Reggie into the folds, upside down, meaning face up. Now he is growling, adding a whole new dynamic to the room. I wet a paper towel with cold water and I check his feet, looking for the offending nail. I find it. Yup, it’s broken and it’s definitely the bleeder.
I get my nail clippers and get rid of the offending piece that’s hanging and now I can see the blood clearly dripping. Swell. This is not going to stop anytime soon.
We have a product we keep on hand for just this type of thing. It’s a powder and it’s in a pill bottle shaped container. I opened the drawer and pushed things around, looking for it. In the meantime, I find some kind of prescription salve that expired in 2012. Then I came across a bunch of keys, including a safety deposit box we had in Calgary in the late 80’s. It was empty then and it’s empty now. Good Times. I found a bunch of loose scotch mints at the back and popped one in my mouth. NOT MINTS. NOT MINTS. I don’t know what that was, but they were not mints. Still no powder to save the bird who was quietly bleeding to death.
I went to the next drawer and, not to be outdone, I found a small jar of nickels from the estate of my Aunt Frances who died several years ago at the age of 94. She was a wild gambler who played 31 and kicked my ass every time. Technically, those were my nickels. No powder there either.
What was this Powder Fuckery? It has always been right there when we’ve needed it.
Plan B. Cornstarch. I dug around under another cupboard and emerged victorious with a box of the mysterious white powder. I hardly ever used it. I’m told it makes things thick. Ladies, are you thinking what I’m thinking? Probably not. I’ll double my meds tonight, I promise.
So, Reggie is upside down in a fluffy towel, growling and I am holding a cold, wet paper towel against the bleeding nail, but the paper towel is getting redder by the minute. THE HEIFER is still on the phone with her lawyer, Bru is still watching TV and Abby has now come up onto the counter to see how her buddy Reggie is making out.
I pour some cornstarch into a dish and start packing it against the end of his nail. Oddly enough, he doesn’t care for that. The blood is still seeping through. I pack on more and now I add a bit of water and go for the paste option. I pack that on too and now it looks like he’s wearing a cast.
In the meantime, because I haven’t adopted the ‘clean as you go’ mantra on this little event, Reggie’s stomach, wings and beak are covered in cornstarch, along with the towel he is laying on, which is black. It looks like a coke dealer’s failed attempt at getting a parrot to cut the drugs for him.
By now my panic has settled into something vaguely pleasant – this sound of rushing water in my ears and things aren’t as blurry as they were. I’m talking to Reggie as I have been the entire time and I think he has figured out that between the 4 survivors, I am probably the best one to be tending his wounds.
Things finally started to settle down and there was no more fresh blood. His feet were covered in blood, my hands were covered in blood and cocaine, his feathers and the towel were covered in cocaine; I don’t think there was much more I could do to him at this point.
I just leaned over the counter while he lay upside down on the towel and while we both calmed down and just looked at each other, Abby came over and curled up right behind Reggie’s head to show her love and support. Tears formed in my eyes at her gesture.
Then I watched as Reggie turned his head, grabbed a bunch of her fur in his beak and yanked it out. Abby bailed from her nursing position, hurt feelings and bald. Reggie had a beak full of fur that I was pulling out with blood and cocaine covered fingers, so now it looked like a bonafide crime scene.
I just looked at him, right into his two beady little eyes and I asked him how he could do that. He stared back at me, blinked and struggled to get up. I put him back on his bloodied perch and put Bru in charge of watching the offending nail. Then I went to my office where I sat with my head in my hands, waiting.
And one minute later, right on time, Abby came in for cuddles.