Benny & Joon: Two Birds Are Better Than One

“Watch it, I’m sitting below you.”

“Then move. Not my problem.”

Often, Benny and Joon sounded like squabbling siblings. I could just imagine how their chirps and churrs would come across in English.

“Don’t touch me like that.”

“I didn’t even touch you.”

More often, they sounded like star-crossed lovers while poking their beaks at each other quicker than a jackhammer: Mwah, mwah. Smack, smack.

I thought of our pair of parakeets—green Benny and blue Joon—as “budgies for life.” They’d been rescued over 10 years earlier from a community services client in Richland Center who couldn’t keep them in her apartment any longer.

The day I drove home with the pair had been hot and sunny. I was expecting Dane soon and knew he’d be tired from a long sweaty workday, so dinner was ready. Benny and Joon’s cage was on a table in the living room, overlooking the back deck and yard. I’d opened the window a few inches so they’d have fresh air. They seemed content, not too talkative, as they took in their new surroundings.

After Dane washed his hands, I ushered him outside for a lovely dinner under the shade of an umbrella on the back deck. The ducks and geese were roaming the yard below, quacking and squawking as usual. The dogs, also tired from the heat, were lying near our legs.

Benny and Joon must have finished settling in, because they started talking—squabbling! I hadn’t mentioned them to Dane yet, who kept looking around, puzzled. “What’s that noise?’

“The birds,” I answered, and he looked toward the yard and the flock, shaking his head. Finally, he stood up, looked in the window, and said, “Parakeets?!”

Soon Benny and Joon’s racket became a normal part of the household. If they were quiet, we’d check on them to see why.

One day I set a pot on the stove with oil and popcorn and went outside to do chores. When I came back in, the house was full of smoke, and flames shot out from the burner. I quickly opened windows and fanned out the house, but I heard a thunk. In the morning, I discovered it was Joon. The smoke had killed her.

Benny was fine but lonely. Off to La Crosse I went and came home with another blue female, whom we dubbed Joon II.

Benny and Joon II enjoyed short showers whenever I cleaned their cage. They had every toy made for parakeets—so many that we rotated them to make their life more interesting.

One of their toys was a little basketball hoop with a ball on a chain. Benny turned out to be a pro basketball player. He once sank 24 baskets in less than two minutes, with Joon II standing close by, cheering him on.

A few years later, Joon II unexpectedly died. This time Dane and I both went to Petco and drove straight home with Joon III. Benny was thrilled and started yakking at Joon III almost immediately.

It wasn’t until a year ago that my critter sitter noticed Benny’s beak was overly long. I’m nearly blind close up without my glasses and hadn’t noticed. Benny went to the vet, the vet trimmed his beak, and life went on, with Benny and Joon III scolding, kissing, and more chipper than ever.

But Benny’s beak kept growing back as fast as the vet cut it, until the third visit, when she confirmed that the excessive growth was a result of liver disease. There wasn’t anything to be done, and soon we started trimming Benny's beak ourselves instead of scaring him with a vet visit.

Recently, Dane wasn’t feeling up to catching and holding Benny, so my friend Carol said she’d help. After I showed her a picture of how to hold Benny, she rolled up her sleeves and got busy. Just as she was about to put her hand in the cage, I asked, “Would you rather do the trimming?”

“Nope.”

Soon Carol, a real parakeet wrangler, had Benny in a secure hold. It took only my reader glasses and a quick snip, and soon Benny was telling Joon III all about it.

Looking at Joon III, I wondered out loud if her beak might need trimming too. Carol looked, Dane looked, and the consensus was, “Maybe a little.”

Again I asked Carol: hold or trim? Choosing again to be the holder, she prepared to catch Joon III and reached into the cage just I remarked that she was a real biter. Immediately Carol shrieked a cuss word louder than Benny and Joon’s combined screeching.

“She bit me $#@& hard!”

“I know, and she hangs on too!” I exclaimed.

Carol gave me the stink eye and screamed, “Ouch, @$&5#, she’s biting me again!”

“Hang on, Carol, I’m ready to cut her beak.”

“Oh my god, it hurts. Aacckk, she got me again! @!#$$!”

I empathized, “Yes, she’s got one heck of a strong beak.” Carol glared at me as she held Joon out for me to cut her beak.

Dane was rolling on the floor with laughter, but I was still empathizing when I said, “Nope, her beak looks good. Just put her back in the cage.”

Then I erupted in laughter at Carol's horrified face as she held up her bright red finger.

To be continued…