It was a dark and gloomy day. Cressy awoke and found that her favored sleeping companion (after Mama Penguin, Kitty Cat, and a stuffed animal of which I am unable to actually identify the species) had been...(dah-dah-dahhhhh)...split in two.
It could have been a fight between stuffed animals in the middle of the night. It might have been that Cressy squeezed the crap out of the hapless parrot whilst in a dream induced stupor concerning herself and boys at school. (Too young for that, so I don't know what she could have been dreaming about that she would have squeezed in a very hard manner but I'm sure it's of a suspicious nature.) Or it could have been poor workmanship because Perry the Parrot is from...China! Gasp. He's a Chinese parrot. He might be a communist agent who was injured while spying on local politician's use of dollar store items.
"Mommy," Cressy said, holding the poor wounded bird up in the air by a wing and giving a look from which I could not evade. "
You will fix him."
I looked at the bird and ascertained that major surgery was needed. I obtained assistance from Nurse Cressy and we gathered the necessary utensils. Tooth picks, chopsticks, chap stick, paper clips, baby ibuprofen, and a little Whaler's Vanille Rum for my nerves. We couldn't find the play doctor's kit so we gathered what we could and went in for emergency, on-the-spot surgery. There wasn't time for anything else.
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| Perry conserving his strength |
Perry was hemorrhaging out his back at a phenomenal rate. At this pace donor stuffing would have to be obtained from Build-a-Bear.
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| Perry with the stuffing knocked out of him |
Poor bastard. He only had minutes to live. Doctor Mommy and Nurse Cressy had to act quickly.
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| Nurse Cressy in a nursy moment |
Nurse Cressy got her mask on and disinfected her hands by wiping them surreptitiously on her thighs. Then she knocked on the wood floor for luck. She would have spit into the wind, too, but she doesn't know how to spit, yet.
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Perry getting high on pretend morphine.
Oh, what a lucky bird. |
Perry was given a dose of stuffed animal morphine, which looks suspiciously like air, and has about the same density. When Perry started murmuring about seeing all kinds of colors and lots of female parrots doing the Watusi while stripping their feathers, we knew he was ready.
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Precision surgery on a stuffed animal.
Notice the precision instruments used. |
Chopsticks and a battery operated lamp were used for extreme precision. After all, we were going in near Perry's spinal cord, which looks amazingly like more stuffing, and we didn't want the bird to be a quadriplegic for the rest of his stuffed bird life. (That's approximately 6 - 12 months depending on what other stuffed animal takes his place at Cressy's side.)
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Perry being given a dose of the ol' electricity.
There are places that people actually
pay for this to happen to them. |
Moments became tense when Perry suffered a massive heart attack during the course of the tricky surgery. A defibrillator was applied to his body in order to restart the heart. "Mommy," said Nurse Cressy sadly. "Will those things hurt Perry?" "No," I said. "We will rebuild him. We will make him better. We will put in parts from Radio Shack. We will steal lines from a cheesy 70s TV series."
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Perry in a moment he'd rather not
share with the world. |
The defibrillator leads were reapplied, but only because Doctor Mommy was easily bored and needed fresh amusement and well, because I couldn't NOT take the above photograph. Also because there were two leads and Doctor Mommy has a lurid mindset. Fortunately for all involved Perry's heart was restarted.
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Perry, under sedation, mumbles warily,
"My goodness that's a very big knife." |
The major surgery had begun. The big knife was brought out. Nurse Cressy said, "NOT that knife, Doctor Mommy. You'll cut him in two pieces." I said, "Yes, Nurse Cressy. The big knife. It's the right tool. And it looks funny in the photographs."
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| Perry being transported by Nurse Cressy |
Hours later, or maybe it was minutes, the patient was finished. Stitches were applied to the back wound because Doctor Mommy couldn't find the stapler or the duck tape. (OKAY, duct tape for you hard core enthusiasts. I just figured duck tape for a bird. Get it?) The patient was transported to the recovery unit via a transport made with Nurse Cressy's two little hands out of paper, scotch tape, and two chopsticks. (The bird stretcher - we may need a patent.)
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"Help!" screams Perry. "They've got me
captured and are requesting the
launch codes for the Chinese Dragon rockets!
Also, more pretend morphine!" |
Finally, the operation was a success. The patient woke up several hours later with bandages applied liberally to his birdly body. Sadly, Perry is unable to lower his wings for the duration. But happily he can now resume sleeping in the bed with Cressy and making little Chinese invasion plans for Chairman Mao Tse Tung.
I love my job.
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