I’ve often wondered why people haven’t domesticated mockingbirds. That’s just human nature. If something is charming or entertaining, we want to cram it in a box and keep it for ourselves. A couple of years ago, a little mockingbird started settling in my yard every morning. He sits on the power line and performs. The first time I heard him, he was quacking. I scanned the yard for a wayward duck for a good 45 seconds before I looked up and realized it was coming from the little mockingbird. How cute. He quacks. Like a duck.
A few mornings later, he added my obnoxious neighbor’s ringtone to his set list. “Quack! Quack! Quack! Do-di-leedle! Do-di-leedle!” He makes duck sounds and phone sounds. How funny!
This continued for some time. The set list got longer and longer, and as the little fellow grew, so did his lung capacity. Within a couple of months, he was repeating various sounds for a good thirty minutes and he could be heard in the back of the house with all the windows closed. He watches me wave my arms and yell and he just gets louder, smug in the knowledge that I can’t get to him and my aim is not that good. I think my protests have offended him, and now he has made it his mission to irritate me. He has started repeating sounds that he knows aggravate me. Like the neighbor’s squeaky attic fan or the sound of another neighbor peeling out on his motorcycle. He looks me dead in the eye while he does it too, and I swear he is smirking.
The final straw occurred recently when I was outside puttering around in the yard with the dog. I was just walking around, minding my own business when he started making that truck backing up beeping sound. Now he’s not just annoying me, he’s insulting me. Exasperated, I threw my arms up and looked at him. “Really? Really, mockingbird?” He hasn’t learned to snicker yet, but his eyes were laughing at me. So now I know. They haven’t been domesticated yet because they are spiteful, evil little creatures.
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