Contractormag 2841 Whosaprettybirdie2
Contractormag 2841 Whosaprettybirdie2
Contractormag 2841 Whosaprettybirdie2
Contractormag 2841 Whosaprettybirdie2
Contractormag 2841 Whosaprettybirdie2

Are contractors just like creatures of habit?

May 21, 2015
Do you think this story about bird poop might relate to the plumbing & heating business? We had a three-way stand-off, my teenage son, his pet cockatiel (named Birdman), and I.   Birdman was stubborn. My teenage son, being a teen, was stubborn. And I was, well, determined that I was not going to be the one to clean that cage again. 

I want to advise readers that this article came about thanks to CONTRACTOR’s plumbing and heating nightmares photo galleries. Have you taken at look lately at some of these botched bathroom and kitchen plumbing photos? If not, make sure you take a look right now these terrible examples of plumbing.  

Do you think this story about bird poop might relate to the plumbing and heating business?

iStock/Thinkstock

We had a three-way stand-off, my teenage son, his pet cockatiel (named Birdman), and I. The issue was a growing pile of bird poop. 

Birdman’s home, of course, was a bird cage. He was very tame, his wings were clipped, so that he couldn’t fly, and so the door to the cage was most always open. He could come and go wherever he pleased. But except for an occasionally leap to the floor to land in front of a baffled house cat, there were just two places where he chose to be. 

He mostly spent the daytime on top of the cage, completely quiet until I — in my home office two rooms away — started talking on the phone. Then he raised so much ruckus that customers would ask if I was in a zoo or something. That’s how he eventually got a new home, but that’s later.

Birdman was stubborn. My teenage son, being a teen, was stubborn. And I was, well, determined that I was not going to be the one to clean that cage again.

Birdman was like many of us people — he was a creature of habit, and he was not going to change.

 

Birdman was like many of us people — he was a creature of habit, and he was not going to change. When night time came, he made his way to his second place-to-be. Using his beak as we have seen parrots do, he walked himself from the top of the cage, down the bars of the front of the cage, through the open door.

Once inside he snapped some seeds for a bedtime snack, sipped some water, and side-stepped his way to the exact middle of his wooden dowel perch. It spanned the entire width of the cage.

In this exact same place each night, he clamped each foot around the perch, fluffed his feathers, snuggled his puffed up body down over his feet, tucked his head under a wing, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

Something we rarely think about is the fact that while birds sleep, they poop. Bird poop is remarkably inoffensive. Examined up close, which I came to have plenty of opportunity to do, it’s more like solid white chalk than anything else. It made me think of the heroic English Cliffs of Dover. It was a nice color — bright white—and apparently odorless.  And typical of solid material, it piled up.

The pile started out as a few dime-sized plops on the newspaper-covered cage floor immediately below Birdman. A bird the size of a cockatiel — no bigger than a robin —doesn’t make very much poop each night.

But this stand-off went on for a long, long time. And so after awhile, we had a little cone-shaped white chalky hill right under the sleeping Birdman. And then we had a taller cone. 

No one gave in. My son didn’t clean the cage. I didn’t give the bird away as I threatened.  And Birdman did not move even a fraction of an inch to either side of the exact middle of his perch.

But things did change. The interior of the cage, whose condition had been only a point of contention between my son and I, became a matter of extreme interest to everyone. The ever-growing pile of white chalk got a name — Mt. Poop.

Like us humans, as conditions changed, consciously or not, Birdman did make an accommodation.

 

There was no longer a question as to who — my son or I — would give in first to clean the cage. The question now was how high would Mt Poop get before Birdman moved over? Surely he would scoot one direction or the other when Mt Poop’s chalky point reached his feathered behind.

Nope. Just like us humans, Birdman was not going to give in. He did not budge. But also like us humans, as conditions changed, consciously or not, Birdman did make an accommodation. As Mt Poop grew, higher than the level of the snuggled-down-for-the-night bird, birdman learned to sleep standing taller, and then taller on his perch. 

What would happen when Birdman ran out of sleeping taller? By now Mt Poop was higher in the air than the perch.

Birdman continued his stance. He accommodated now by sleeping tipped over, with his tail higher and higher, his heinie waving in the wind, had there been wind. Birdman spent each night positioned to do a face plant.

Fortunately, time came to the rescue. My son grew up, went to college, and left the bird and me behind. Without compromising my principles, I was now free to clean my bird’s cage. Out went Mt Poop to enrich the garden, and Birdman could once again snuggle down on the middle of the perch in for a normal sleep.

You are probably wondering, what’s the point of this story. There could be many, but let’s start here:

  • Who do you think won the stand-off? My son didn’t clean the cage, Birdman didn’t move, and I got a bird I never wanted. 
  • Is there a point for all of us where our pile of “stuff” is so tall and our tail is so high, that we’re just swaying in the wind, ready for a face plant?
  • And most importantly, don’t we all know a Birdman or two in the plumbing and heating business?

Carol Fey is a technical trainer and writer, specializing in easy electricity, hydronics and troubleshooting books.  She also writes about HVAC work in Antarctica.  You can find her and her books at carolfey.com.

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