A Knock on the Door

Except for one light, the apartment was dark, and Miss Prissy and I were snoozing in our cage. The Tall One slept in her bed. After a busy day full of eating, chewing, and preening, I like my rest, so I was not happy when there was a knock on the door just a little while after we had all settled in for the night. I opened my eyes, and I saw flashing lights outside. I wondered if we would have to evacuate the apartment, and I think the Tall One had the same idea, because she looked at our cage as she walked to the door. Obviously, she was already worried about getting us out. She has her shortcomings, but at least she has her priorities straight.

She did not open the door, which was very smart, of course, because you never know who might be out there. When she asked who was there, a man's voice answered: "Police!" Of course, I wondered what she might have done to get into trouble. The problem with humans is that they are very hard to supervise. I wondered if jails take bird seed in lieu of bail money, but luckily, it turned out that she had not done anything wrong. He said that he was there because they got a call that she had breathing problems, which sounded very silly to me. My human's breathing is just fine, thank you very much, and when she's sick, I send her to the doctor. I take good care of my human, there is no reason to call the police.

Then he asked: "Do you mind if we come in?" Luckily, my human has been watching more detective shows than is good for her, and she knows that without a warrant, nobody is allowed to come into our apartment and disturb our sleep. She would not let anybody in, and she asked who called. The guy said it was her daughter, and she told him she did not have one. It was very annoying, because he did not seem to believe her. Don't you think she would know the members of her family? Neither he nor the Tall One sounded very happy, and I wondered why he did not go away and let us go back to sleep. He read off the address he had been given, and it matched ours. Then he said that fire and rescue were there. At that point, I began to fluff up my feathers and stretch my wings, just in case I would have an audience. The Tall One seemed to think along the same lines, because she started grabbing the things she calls clothes.

Suddenly, the guy's tone of voice changed, and he became all friendly. He said that the dispatcher had just gotten another call that said our address was the wrong one. See, he should have listened to the Tall One right away, it would have saved him some time! He apologized for waking us up, which, of course, was the right thing to do after all that trouble. Then he finally left. I think he and the rescue people finally went to the right place and helped the human with the breathing problems; hopefully, they got there on time. The lights flashed quite a while longer and then went away. Miss Prissy, the Tall One, and I went back to sleep. I hope we don't get interrupted again!