We've had George the parrot for thirty years and he won't shut up unless he wants to. Parrot's prerogative. But sometimes I say, "George, if you don't pipe down, I'm gonna . . ." George cocks an evil eye, as if to say, "Yeah? What?"

There's really not much you can do. We have a hallway with a door leading to it and guests who stay in the room above the hall say there are ghosts that wander around there all night. The hall is always dark, day or night. We put George in the hall and close the door. He cries like a baby for a moment. Then gets quiet. Once, when I let him out of the closed hall, he said, "It's about time."

George is a talker, and like Karl's owl, a squaller. He can turn a room upside down with his caterwauling. (If you don't know what that means it's "catter wailing" or a cat carrying on at night; or perhaps a discombobulated owl. Oh, I don't know, you have to be here to know how much noise George can make.)

One time George was making so much noise, I told him the joke about the noisy parrot. The one where the owner says, "If you shoot your mouth off once more, I'm sticking you in the freezer." The parrot hollers bloody murder. The guy throws him in the freezer which is full of frozen chicken parts. A couple seconds later the owner feels sorry for the poor bird and opens the freezer. The dazed parrot steps out covered with frost, and says, "What did that other guy do?"

George didn't think the joke was funny. When I got to the end, he said, "Yeah?" Like it was supposed to have a better, or at least, a funnier, ending. He's pretty quick. Once I was on the phone with a telemarketer and I'd had it with the wheedling and the conniving, and I said, "I'm going to hang up on you!" I did, too. After which, I said -- "What a jerk!" George eyed me from across the room and said, "You're the jerk!"

Sometimes, however, George is quiet, and for all the right reasons, and none of them threatening. Two relatives of mine showed up at the house yesterday. The father, Herb, was a cousin I hadn't seen for forty, no, fifty, years. His daughter Cindy, well, I'd never met her before. It was a special occasion and my wife Lorry made the best egg salad in the world. Everyone said so. I gave some to George. I put a scoop in his bowl and said, "If you eat eggs, you're a cannibal." George looked at me, then he dug in.

After our guests left, I said to Lorry -- "It's really fun having friends for lunch."

Across the room, George said, "Cannibal."