The Surprising Un-Surprise Birthday Party

A bellicose parrot thundered in my right ear, “Try the damn fajitas.” Startled, I reflexively stepped to the left, which caused me to make full-body contact with a waitress named Sula, who was carrying a tray laden with bowls of hot, steaming chicken caldo. Sula went down hard, and the soup she was transporting took a northwest trajectory, landing on a party of four sheriff’s deputies, causing first-degree burns on one of the deputy’s fireplug biceps. This was not the sort of entrance I wished to make at my birthday dinner at Cantina Felipe.
I was unscathed, but I could feel accusatory eye darts fired in my direction. “It wasn’t me,” I explained desperately, “The bird yelled at me, and I got scared.” My excuse did not seem to be playing well; I doubt it was even heard over the howling of the napalmed deputy. I helped Sula off the floor as Manuel, the assistant manager, called EMS to transport the lawman to a local hospital. I was looking around for my party when one of the uninjured deputies approached me with malice and asked for my identification. “You’re in a heap of trouble boy,” he snarled.
I was both terrified and flattered. I felt I was about to be sucked into the nightmare of our legal system, but today I was 61, and he had called me “boy.” As I slowly reached for my wallet and ID, a young girl, about six-years-old, came up and said to the cop, “I saw it. I saw what happened, and it was the bird’s fault. That’s a mean bird, he scares me.”
The deputy smiled at the little girl, frowned at me, and then stared at the parrot. The bird just bobbed its head. By this time, the clamor had begun to die down in the restaurant, and relative calm was being re-established. It appeared the lawman might dismiss the incident and send me on my way when Pathetic Bob walked out from one of the small banquet rooms. “Jeez Em, where the hell have you been? Everybody’s waiting on you. They won’t let me have any food ‘til you get here,” he complained. “Who is this cop?”
I hadn’t realized my wife had invited the dog to my surprise party that was not really a surprise party but had become a surprise party after all. “Never mind Bob,” I quickly responded, hoping to get him out of the deputy’s presence, “Why don’t you just go back into the room, and I’ll be along shortly.”
“Is that your dog?” asked the cop.
“Well, he lives with me, but he’s his own dog,” I tried to explain.
As I launched into a further explanation about it being my birthday and the unsurprised-surprise party, the little girl went over to Bob and starting petting him. “Have you washed your hands?” he asked her. She giggled.
I was talking to the deputy, the girl was talking to Bob, Bob was talking to the girl, and the parrot was bobbing and weaving like a professional boxer. As the officer finally handed my ID back to me, Bob came up and said to him, “I think you ought to arrest that bird. The kid told me what the bird did. It’s a menace, take it away.”
“Bob, I don’t think…”
“To hell with that Em. I’m fed up with birds getting away with everything. They need to be held accountable. Every time I go out on the deck at home, birds gangs fly by and drop poop bombs on me. I’m sick of it. This city locks up dogs and cats just for wandering around not hurting anyone, but birds, they get away with any damn thing they want to do.”
The deputy looked Bob, then back at me. “Are you a ventriloquist?” he asked.
I laughed nervously. “Uh, yeah. I was just fooling around, you know, I was entertaining the little girl. Look sir, I really appreciate your understanding. I’m gonna take Bob, and we’re going to go have a nice birthday dinner. I hope your friend will be Ok.”
I picked Bob up and headed towards the banquet room, but before we had gone two steps, he turned around and yelled at the parrot, “We’re gonna have chicken!”