Laugh Track Rebellion

My name is Dave, and I am currently crouched inside a dog crate in the back of a Honda Odyssey, holding a bag of frozen peas against my left eye, while my wife negotiates with a man named Gunther who owns three parrots and a crossbow.

Let me back up.

Two weeks ago I was a normal person. I had a job. I had a mortgage. I had a favorite parking spot at the Whole Foods on Route 9, third row, near the cart return but not too near, the sweet spot I'd been using for six years. I knew the deli guy's name. Marcus. He'd wave when I came in. I'd wave back. That was my life. A man with a parking spot and a deli guy who knew his name.

Then my sister-in-law, Brenda, called.

Brenda is one of those people who discovers a new passion every eleven days. Last year it was sourdough. Before that it was roller derby. Before that it was crystals. She called me on a Tuesday night while I was watching a documentary about octopuses and said, "Dave, I've found your calling."

"I have a calling?"

"YouTube Shorts."

I muted the octopus. "I'm forty-three years old."

"Exactly. That's the demographic nobody's serving. Middle-aged men doing funny stuff. Dave, the algorithm is starving for authentic content from real people. Not these kids with their ring lights and their dance trends. You. You're the guy."

I should mention here that Brenda has never had a job that lasted longer than a seasonal pop-up Halloween store. She once tried to sell essential oils to our mailman and got a restraining order. Not a real one. A verbal one. From the mailman. His name is Steve and he still won't make eye contact with her.

But here's the thing about Brenda. She's persuasive. Not in a logical way. In a way that makes you feel like you're the one being unreasonable for not wanting to film yourself eating a ghost pepper in your driveway at midnight.

"I can't do YouTube," I said.

"You already have a phone."

"My phone is from 2019."

"Perfect. Authenticity."

I looked at the octopus on my muted TV. He seemed to be judging me. Octopuses have that quality. They know things.

"What would I even do?" I asked, and that was my first mistake. The question. The opening. Brenda heard it and she pounced.

"Comedy of errors," she said. "Classic trope. You set up a simple task and everything goes wrong. People love watching competent people fail. It makes them feel better about their own lives."

"I'm not competent."

"Even better."

I should have hung up. I should have said no. I should have remembered that Brenda once convinced me to invest four hundred dollars in a company that turned out to be a guy named Todd selling homemade beef jerky out of his garage. The jerky gave me food poisoning. Todd disappeared. The SEC got involved. Not really. But it felt like they should have.

Instead I said, "What kind of task?"

And Brenda said, "Something simple. Something everyone does. You know, like changing a lightbulb. Or making a sandwich. Or assembling furniture."

"I can do those things."

"Can you?"

I could. I had. I'd assembled a bookshelf from IKEA just last month. It only took me four hours and I only cried once. That's a success rate of like ninety percent.

"Fine," I said. "One video. If it's stupid, I'm done."

"Deal," Brenda said, and I could hear her smiling through the phone, which should have been my second warning. Brenda's smile is like a shark's. It means something is about to get bitten.

The next morning I woke up at six because I always wake up at six, and I made coffee, and I sat at my kitchen table looking at my phone. The octopus documentary was still in my watch history. I felt like he was watching me from the other room.

One video, I thought. How hard could it be?

I decided to make a sandwich. Simple. Relatable. Everyone makes sandwiches. I'd make a turkey and Swiss on sourdough, maybe with some lettuce and tomato, and I'd film it, and it would take five minutes, and then I'd go back to my life.

I set up my phone against a stack of cookbooks. I hit record. I said, "Hey everyone, today I'm going to show you how to make the perfect turkey sandwich."

Then the doorbell rang.

I ignored it. I kept filming. I said, "First, you want to start with good bread."

The doorbell rang again.

I said, "Sorry about that, I'm just going to..."

I went to the door. It was my neighbor, Phil. Phil is seventy-two years old and has lived next door for thirty years. He wears the same brown cardigan every day. He has a dog named Dog. Dog is a golden retriever who is afraid of squirrels.

"Dave," Phil said. "Your mailbox is on fire."

I looked at my mailbox. It was, in fact, on fire. Small flames. Like a birthday candle that got out of hand.

"How?" I asked.

"I don't know," Phil said. "I was just standing here."

I ran to the mailbox. I didn't have a fire extinguisher. I had a garden hose that was tangled in the bushes. By the time I got it untangled, the fire had gone out on its own. The mailbox was charred but standing. Inside was a single piece of mail. A postcard from Brenda. It said, "Can't wait to see the video! Love you!"

I went back inside. My phone was still recording. I had been gone for eleven minutes. I looked at the camera and said, "Sorry about that. My mailbox caught fire."

Then I made the sandwich. It took four minutes. I ate it. I stopped recording.

I posted the video that night. I didn't edit it. I didn't add music. I didn't do anything except upload it and go to bed.

The next morning it had two hundred thousand views.

I want to be clear about something. I didn't do anything to make that happen. I didn't promote it. I didn't share it. I didn't even tell my wife. The algorithm just found it. The algorithm found me, a forty-three-year-old man with a burnt mailbox and a turkey sandwich, and decided I was content.

The comments were mostly people saying "why is this so funny" and "I can't stop watching" and "sir your mailbox was on fire and you just kept making a sandwich." One person said I was their new favorite creator. Another person said I reminded them of their dad. A third person said they'd watched it forty-seven times.

My wife, Karen, found out when her coworker showed her at lunch.

"You're famous," Karen said when she got home.

"I'm not famous."

"You have two hundred thousand views."

"That's not famous. That's a fluke."

"Brenda called. She wants you to make another one."

"No."

"She said she has ideas."

"No."

"She said she's coming over tomorrow."

I looked at the ceiling. The ceiling looked back at me. It didn't have any answers.

"Fine," I said. "One more. Then I'm done."

That was two weeks ago. Since then I have made eleven videos. In that time I have:

Accidentally set my kitchen on fire while trying to make toast.

Fallen through my deck while trying to hang string lights.

Been chased by a goose at the park while trying to do a nature walk.

Locked myself out of my car in the pouring rain while trying to show people how to change a tire.

Gotten my head stuck in a fence while trying to demonstrate how to retrieve a frisbee.

Spilled an entire gallon of paint on my driveway while trying to paint a birdhouse.

And now, as I mentioned at the beginning, I am crouched inside a dog crate in the back of a Honda Odyssey, holding a bag of frozen peas against my left eye, while my wife negotiates with a man named Gunther who owns three parrots and a crossbow.

The dog crate smells like wet fur and something else. Something metallic. I don't want to think about what it is. The frozen peas are starting to thaw. Water is dripping down my cheek. My eye is swelling shut. I can still see out of the other one, which is how I know Gunther is currently pointing the crossbow at Karen's chest.

"Gunther," Karen says, in her calm voice, the one she uses when she's trying to talk me out of a panic attack, "let's think about this."

"Nobody moves," Gunther says. His accent is German. Or Austrian. Or maybe Swiss. I can't tell. I'm not good with accents. He's wearing lederhosen. Actual lederhosen. With the little suspenders and everything. One of the parrots is on his shoulder. The other two are on a perch behind him. They're all watching me. Parrots have that quality too. Like octopuses.

"I'm not moving," I say from inside the crate. "I'm very still. I'm the stillest person you've ever met."

"Shut up, Dave," Karen says.

"Shutting up."

Here's how we got here.

Three days ago Brenda called with her latest idea. She said, "Dave, I've got it. The perfect video. The one that's going to break you into the mainstream."

"I don't want to be in the mainstream."

"You want to be in the mainstream."

"I want to be in my living room."

"Listen. You know how people love videos where someone tries to do something simple and everything goes wrong?"

"That's my entire brand."

"Exactly. So here's the pitch. You're going to buy a parrot."

I was silent for a moment. I was sitting in my car in the Whole Foods parking lot. My spot. Third row. Near the cart return. Marcus had waved at me on the way in. I had waved back. I was holding a bag of organic carrots and contemplating my life choices.

"Why would I buy a parrot?" I asked.

"You're not going to buy it. You're going to adopt it. From a rescue. And then you're going to try to teach it to talk. And everything's going to go wrong. It'll be hilarious."

"Parrots can already talk."

"That's the point. But they don't say what you want them to say. They say random stuff. Inappropriate stuff. You know, like curse words. It'll be a comedy of errors."

"Brenda, I don't know anything about parrots."

"Neither does anyone else. That's why it's relatable."

I looked at the carrots. They were orange and perfect and didn't require me to interact with any birds.

"I'll think about it," I said.

"Great. I already found a rescue. It's called Gunther's Exotic Bird Sanctuary. I'll text you the address."

She hung up before I could say no.

I should have said no. I should have driven home and forgotten about it. But I didn't. I went home and I told Karen, and Karen said, "Absolutely not," and I said, "I know," and then I looked up Gunther's Exotic Bird Sanctuary on my phone, and that was the beginning of the end.

The sanctuary was in a rural part of the state, an hour and a half away, down roads that didn't have names. Just numbers. County Road 14. County Road 9. County Road 3. The GPS kept saying things like "turn left in five hundred feet" and then there would be no left turn. Just trees. Just fields. Just a billboard for a gun show that happened three years ago.

I brought Karen because Brenda said I needed a camera person, and Brenda was busy, and I didn't want to be alone with a strange man who owned parrots. Karen didn't want to come. She said it was a bad idea. She said it was the kind of idea that ends with someone in the hospital. I told her she was being dramatic. I told her it would be fine.

I was wrong.

We pulled up to the sanctuary at two in the afternoon. It was a house. Just a house. A normal house with a normal yard and a normal fence. The only thing unusual was the sign out front that said GUNTHER'S EXOTIC BIRD SANCTUARY in hand-painted letters, and the fact that there were at least a dozen bird feeders hanging from every tree, and the fact that the air was filled with the sound of squawking.

Karen looked at me. "I'm waiting in the car."

"Fine."

"No, I mean it. I'm waiting in the car. If you're not back in twenty minutes, I'm calling the police."

"That's ridiculous."

"Is it?"

I got out of the car. I walked up to the front door. I knocked. Nothing happened. I knocked again. The door opened.

Gunther was not what I expected. I don't know what I expected. Maybe a kindly old man in a sweater. Maybe a bird enthusiast with glasses and a gentle smile. Instead I got a man in his fifties with a shaved head and a handlebar mustache and lederhosen. The lederhosen were green. The mustache was gray. His arms were covered in scratches. Some old. Some new. He was holding a parrot on his forearm like a falconer.

"Ja?" he said.

"I'm here about the parrot."

"Which parrot?"

"The... rescue parrot?"

He stared at me. The parrot stared at me. The parrot was green and red and had one eye that looked slightly off. Like it was looking at two things at once.

"We have many parrots," Gunther said. "You must be specific."

"Brenda sent me? Brenda Miller?"

Gunther's face changed. It didn't get friendlier. It got more intense. Like I'd said a password and now we were in the secret club.

"Ah," he said. "Brenda. Yes. She called. She said you are... how do you say... a content creator."

"I make videos."

"Comedy of errors."

"Something like that."

He looked me up and down. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt that said WORLD'S OKAYEST DAD. It was a gift from my daughter. She'd gotten it at a thrift store. I wore it ironically. Or maybe not ironically. I wasn't sure anymore.

"You will do," Gunther said, and opened the door wider.

I stepped inside. The house was full of birds. Not just parrots. Finches. Canaries. Cockatiels. A macaw the size of a small dog. They were everywhere. On perches. On furniture. On the ceiling fan. One was sitting on the kitchen counter next to a bowl of fruit. Another was in the bathroom. The door was open. I could see it. Just sitting on the toilet tank. Watching.

"This is a lot of birds," I said.

"Birds are my life," Gunther said. "Birds are my passion. Birds are my everything."

"Okay."

"You want a parrot."

"I want to film a video with a parrot."

"Same thing."

It was not the same thing. I knew it was not the same thing. But I didn't say that. I was trying to be polite. I was trying to get in and out. I was trying to make a video and go home and forget this ever happened.

Gunther led me to a back room. The back room was filled with cages. Large cages. Small cages. Cages stacked on cages. In one of them was a parrot. A gray parrot. An African gray. I knew this because I'd googled parrots on the way over. I'd read about them. They're smart. They can learn hundreds of words. They can understand context. They can be difficult. They can be loud. They can live for fifty years.

"This is Einstein," Gunther said.

"His name is Einstein?"

"Her name is Einstein. She is forty-two years old. She has been with me for thirty years. She is very intelligent. She is very stubborn. She is very... how do you say... opinionated."

The parrot looked at me. She had gray feathers and a black beak and eyes that seemed to see right through me. I felt like she was judging me. I felt like she knew all my secrets. I felt like she knew about the time I accidentally ran over a squirrel in 2018 and never told anyone.

"Hello," I said.

"Hello," the parrot said.

I jumped. I didn't mean to. It just happened. The parrot laughed. Actually laughed. A low, throaty chuckle that sounded like a villain in a cartoon.

"She likes you," Gunther said.

"She does?"

"She laughed. That is a good sign."

I wasn't sure it was a good sign. It felt like the opposite of a good sign. But I was committed now. I was in the back room of a bird sanctuary with a man in lederhosen and a parrot who laughed like she was plotting something.

"What do I need to know?" I asked.

Gunther handed me a piece of paper. It was handwritten. It was covered in notes. Some in English. Some in German. Some in symbols I didn't recognize.

"These are the rules," he said.

I looked at the paper. The first rule was: NEVER FEED AFTER MIDNIGHT.

"Like a gremlin?" I asked.

Gunther didn't laugh. "She has a sensitive stomach."

The second rule was: DO NOT MENTION THE WAR.

"Which war?"

"Any war."

The third rule was: IF SHE SAYS THE WORD 'BANANA' RUN.

"Why?"

"Just run."

I folded the paper and put it in my pocket. I looked at Einstein. Einstein looked at me. She tilted her head. She said, "Banana."

I didn't run. I should have run. But I didn't. I just stood there, frozen, while Gunther said, "Ah, she is joking. She does that."

"She jokes?"

"She has a sense of humor. It is very dry."

I took Einstein home that day. Gunther gave me a cage. He gave me a bag of food. He gave me a list of instructions. He gave me a phone number to call if there were problems. He said, "There will be problems." He said it like a warning. He said it like a prophecy.

Karen was still in the car. She'd been waiting for forty-five minutes. She'd called the police. They'd told her to call back if I was actually missing. She was not happy.

"What is that?" she asked when she saw the cage.

"It's Einstein."

"You bought a parrot."

"I adopted a parrot."

"You adopted a parrot."

"For the video."

"For the video."

"Yes."

She stared at me. I stared back. The parrot said, "Hello, Karen."

Karen's eyes went wide. "How does it know my name?"

"I might have mentioned you."

"You mentioned me to the parrot."

"On the way over. In the car. I was nervous."

The parrot said, "Karen is not happy."

Karen looked at me. "Is it psychic?"

"It's a parrot."

"It knew my name."

"I told it your name."

"It knew I wasn't happy."

"You're never happy when I do stuff like this."

She couldn't argue with that. We drove home in silence. The parrot sat in her cage in the back seat and made small sounds. Not words. Just sounds. Like she was thinking. Like she was planning.

That was three days ago. Since then, Einstein has learned seventeen new words. None of them are appropriate for YouTube. She has also learned how to open her cage. She has also learned how to open the refrigerator. She has also learned how to use the TV remote. She has also learned how to order things on Amazon.

I found out about the Amazon thing when a package arrived yesterday. It was a case of hot sauce. I didn't order hot sauce. I don't like hot sauce. I asked Karen if she ordered it. She said no. I asked my daughter if she ordered it. She said no. I asked Einstein if she ordered it. She said, "Maybe."

"Did you order hot sauce?"

"Maybe."

"Why would you order hot sauce?"

"Because it is funny."

"It's not funny. It's thirty dollars."

"Thirty dollars is nothing."

"Thirty dollars is not nothing."

"To you."

"What does that mean?"

She didn't answer. She just laughed. That same low, throaty chuckle. Like she knew something I didn't.

I tried to film the video yesterday. I set up my phone. I hit record. I said, "Hey everyone, today I'm going to teach my new parrot to say something."

Einstein said, "No."

"Come on. Just one word. Say 'hello.'"

"No."

"Say 'pretty bird.'"

"No."

"Say anything."

She looked at the camera. She looked at me. She said, "Dave is an idiot."

I stopped recording. I looked at her. She looked at me. She said, "Dave is an idiot," again. Then she laughed.

I didn't post that video. I posted a different video. One where I tried to make pancakes and the smoke alarm went off and my neighbor Phil came over to check on me and Dog ran through the kitchen and knocked over the batter. That one got three hundred thousand views. People love Dog. Dog is afraid of squirrels but he's not afraid of cameras.

But Brenda wants the parrot video. She says it's the one. She says it's going to be huge. She says I need to try again.

So this morning I tried again. I set up my phone. I hit record. I said, "Hey everyone, today I'm going to teach my parrot to say 'good morning.'"

Einstein said, "Good morning, Dave."

"Good morning, Einstein."

"Good morning, Dave."

"Okay, now say it without my name."

"Good morning, Dave."

"Just 'good morning.'"

"Good morning, Dave."

"You're not getting it."

"Good morning, Dave."

"Einstein."

"Good morning, Dave."

I sighed. I looked at the camera. I said, "This is harder than it looks."

Then the doorbell rang.

I ignored it. I kept filming. Einstein said, "Good morning, Dave." I said, "We're going to try something else." The doorbell rang again. Einstein said, "Someone is at the door." I said, "I know." She said, "You should answer it." I said, "I'm filming." She said, "It might be important." I said, "It's probably Phil." She said, "It's not Phil."

I looked at her. She looked at me. She said, "It's Gunther."

The doorbell rang a third time. I went to the door. It was Gunther. He was standing on my porch in his lederhosen. He was holding a crossbow.

"Hello, Dave," he said.

"Hello, Gunther."

"I have come for Einstein."

"She's fine. She's right here."

"She is not fine. She has been sending me messages."

"Messages?"

"On the computer. She has been sending me emails. Very rude emails."

I looked back at Einstein. She was still in her cage. She was watching us. She said, "Gunther is a liar."

Gunther's face turned red. "You see? You see what she is like?"

"She's just joking."

"She is not joking. She has been threatening me. She says she will expose my secrets. She says she will tell everyone about the... the incident."

"What incident?"

"I cannot say. It is too terrible."

Einstein said, "The incident with the flamingo."

Gunther made a sound. It was not a word. It was more like a wounded animal. He raised the crossbow. He pointed it at Einstein. He said, "I will not let you ruin me."

Karen came into the room. She was holding a cup of coffee. She saw Gunther. She saw the crossbow. She said, "What the hell is going on?"

"Gunther wants to shoot Einstein."

"With a crossbow?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"She sent him rude emails."

Karen looked at me. She looked at Gunther. She looked at Einstein. She said, "Everyone calm down."

"Nobody moves," Gunther said. "Nobody moves."

So here we are. I'm in the dog crate. I don't know how I got in the dog crate. I think I crawled in when Gunther first arrived. I think I thought it would be safe. It was not safe. It was just small. And it smells like wet fur. And my eye is swelling shut because when Gunther came in, I tried to grab the crossbow, and he hit me with it. Not the arrow part. The other part. The wooden part. It still hurt.

Karen is negotiating. She's good at negotiating. She once talked a customer service representative into giving her a full refund on a couch we'd had for three years. She once talked our neighbor out of calling the police on our other neighbor for playing drums at midnight. She once talked me out of quitting my job to become a professional poker player. She has skills.

"Gunther," she says, "put down the crossbow."

"I cannot."

"Why not?"

"Because she will ruin me."

"She's a parrot."

"She is not just a parrot. She is a monster. She knows things. She has seen things. She has been in my house for thirty years. She knows where the bodies are buried."

Karen pauses. "What bodies?"

"Metaphorically. It is a metaphor."

"Okay. So she knows metaphorical bodies."

"She knows everything. She knows about the flamingo. She knows about the... the other thing."

"What other thing?"

"I cannot say."

Einstein says, "The thing with the mailman."

Gunther screams. Actually screams. The parrots on his shoulder scream back. The other two parrots, the ones on the perch, they scream too. It's very loud. My ears are ringing. My eye is throbbing. The frozen peas are now just peas. Room temperature peas. Useless peas.

"The mailman was an accident," Gunther says.

"What happened to the mailman?" Karen asks.

"He was not a mailman. He was a spy. He was working for the government. He was trying to steal my birds."

"Was he?"

"I don't know. Maybe. He had a uniform. He had a bag. He was very suspicious."

Einstein says, "He was a mailman."

"Shut up!"

"He was a mailman and you hit him with a shovel."

"I did not hit him with a shovel. I tapped him with a shovel. Gently. He was trespassing."

"He was delivering mail."

"Same thing!"

Karen holds up her hands. "Okay. Okay. Let's all take a breath."

Gunther takes a breath. He doesn't lower the crossbow. He says, "I want Einstein back."

"You can't have her back," I say from the dog crate.

"Dave," Karen says. "Let me handle this."

"She's my parrot."

"She's not your parrot. You adopted her three days ago."

"I signed papers."

"You signed a piece of paper that Gunther wrote on a napkin."

"It was a legal napkin."

Gunther says, "The napkin is not legally binding."

"See?" Karen says.

"Whose side are you on?" I ask.

"I'm on the side of not getting shot with a crossbow."

That's fair. I can't argue with that. I don't want to get shot with a crossbow either. I want to go back to my life. I want to go back to my parking spot and my deli guy and my octopus documentaries. I want to forget that any of this ever happened.

But I can't. Because Einstein is looking at me. She's looking at me with those eyes. Those gray parrot eyes that see everything. And she says, "Dave."

"What?"

"Dave, I don't want to go back."

"Go back where?"

"To Gunther. He is mean. He makes me eat pellets. He never lets me watch TV. He says I am a bad bird."

"You sent him rude emails."

"He deserved them."

"What did he do?"

She tilts her head. She looks at Gunther. Gunther looks at her. There's something passing between them. Something old. Something complicated. Something I don't understand.

"He killed my friend," Einstein says.

Gunther lowers the crossbow. Just a little. Just an inch. "That is not true."

"He killed my friend and he put him in the freezer."

"The freezer was an accident."

"You put him in the freezer and you forgot about him and he was in there for two years."

"It was a mistake."

"What's in the freezer?" Karen asks.

"Nothing," Gunther says.

"There's a dead bird in the freezer?" I ask.

"He was not dead. He was... resting."

"For two years?"

"He was very cold."

Einstein says, "His name was Gerald. He was a macaw. He was my best friend. Gunther killed him because he was jealous."

"I was not jealous. Gerald was... he was difficult."

"He was beautiful. He was kind. He could say the alphabet."

"He could say the alphabet backwards. It was annoying."

"You killed him."

"I did not kill him. He had a heart attack. I put him in the freezer because I didn't know what to do. I panicked."

"You kept him in there for two years."

"I was grieving."

"You were hiding evidence."

"There was no evidence. It was a heart attack."

"A heart attack caused by what?"

Gunther is silent. His face is red. His hands are shaking. The crossbow is pointed at the floor now. He says, "I may have... startled him."

"You screamed at him."

"I raised my voice."

"You screamed at him and he had a heart attack and you put him in the freezer."

"I was going to bury him. I just... I didn't get around to it."

"For two years?"

"Time moves differently when you're grieving."

Karen looks at me. I look at Karen. We're both thinking the same thing. This is insane. This is completely insane. We're in the middle of a hostage situation involving a crossbow and a dead macaw and a parrot who sends emails. This is not normal. This is not okay.

But also. Also. There's a story here. There's a video here. A comedy of errors. The kind Brenda was talking about. The kind that gets views.

I'm not proud of what I'm about to say. But I say it anyway.

"Gunther," I say. "What if we make a deal?"

He looks at me. "What kind of deal?"

"What if Einstein stays with me? And you get... visitation rights?"

"Visitation rights?"

"Once a month. You can come over. You can see her. You can make sure she's okay."

"She is not okay. She is a criminal."

"She's a parrot."

"She is a criminal parrot."

"Fine. She's a criminal parrot. But she's also my parrot now. And I think... I think she likes me."

Einstein says, "I tolerate you."

"See? She tolerates me."

Gunther thinks about this. He thinks for a long time. The parrots on his shoulder are quiet. The parrots on the perch are quiet. Even Karen is quiet. Everyone is waiting.

Finally Gunther says, "I want the emails to stop."

"Einstein," I say. "No more emails."

She tilts her head. "I will consider it."

"No more emails."

"Fine. No more emails."

"And no more ordering things on Amazon."

"That was one time."

"It was three times. You ordered hot sauce and a book about penguins and a sweater."

"The sweater was for you."

"It was a women's medium."

"It was on sale."

Gunther says, "You see? You see what she is like?"

"I see," I say. "But I also see that she's smart. And funny. And she's been with you for thirty years. And maybe... maybe she just needs a change. Maybe she just needs someone who will listen to her."

Gunther looks at Einstein. Einstein looks at Gunther. Something passes between them again. Something softer this time. Something sad.

"I did love her," Gunther says.

"I know," I say.

"I just... I didn't know how to show it."

"I know."

"I am not good with... feelings."

"I know."

Einstein says, "You are not good with anything."

"Shut up."

"Make me."

Gunther raises the crossbow again. Karen says, "No." I say, "Wait." Einstein says, "You wouldn't."

Gunther lowers the crossbow. He sighs. He says, "Fine. Visitation rights. Once a month. But if she sends one more email, I am coming back. And next time I will not be so forgiving."

He turns and walks out the door. We hear his car start. We hear him drive away. The house is quiet.

I crawl out of the dog crate. My legs are asleep. My eye is still swollen. The frozen peas are now just peas. I look at Einstein. She looks at me.

"That was something," I say.

"That was nothing," she says. "You should have seen the time with the flamingo."

"What happened with the flamingo?"

She laughs. That low, throaty chuckle. "Maybe I will tell you sometime."

Karen says, "I need a drink."

I say, "I need a new eye."

Einstein says, "I need a cracker."

We all stand there for a moment. The three of us. In the living room. With the cage and the phone and the Amazon package that arrived yesterday that I still haven't opened. And I realize something. I realize that my life is never going to be the same. I realize that I'm not going back to my parking spot and my deli guy and my octopus documentaries. I realize that I'm in this now. Whatever this is.

And then I realize something else. I realize that my phone is still recording.

I look at the phone. It's been recording this whole time. The entire thing. Gunther. The crossbow. The dead macaw. The emails. The Amazon. Everything.

I look at Karen. She looks at me. She says, "Don't."

I say, "Brenda is going to love this."

"Dave."

"It's a comedy of errors."

"Dave."

"It's the perfect video."

"Dave."

I pick up the phone. I stop the recording. I look at the screen. I look at the length of the video. Forty-seven minutes. The longest one yet.

I look at Einstein. She says, "You're going to post that, aren't you?"

"I think so."

"You're going to make me famous."

"You're already famous."

"I know. But now I'll be more famous."

She laughs. I laugh. Karen doesn't laugh. Karen says, "I'm going to bed."

She goes to bed. I stay up. I edit the video. I post it. I go to sleep.

The next morning it has one million views.

The comments are mostly people saying "what did I just watch" and "is this real" and "I need to know more about the flamingo." One person says I'm their new favorite creator. Another person says they want to adopt a parrot. A third person says they've watched it twelve times.

Brenda calls. She's screaming. She's happy. She says, "I told you. I told you this was your calling."

I look at Einstein. She's sitting on her perch. She's eating a cracker. She says, "I told you too."

"You didn't tell me anything."

"I told you I tolerate you."

"That's not the same thing."

"It's close enough."

I hang up on Brenda. I look at the video. I look at the views. I look at the comments. I think about my parking spot. I think about Marcus. I think about the octopus documentary I never finished.

I think about Gunther. I think about the flamingo. I think about the dead macaw in the freezer. I think about all the things I don't know. All the things I might never know.

And I think about Einstein. I think about her eyes. Those gray parrot eyes that see everything. I think about her laugh. That low, throaty chuckle. I think about the way she said my name.

Dave.

She said it like she knew me. Like she'd always known me. Like she'd been waiting for me.

I don't know what's going to happen next. I don't know what other secrets she's hiding. I don't know what other disasters are waiting for me. I don't know if I'm going to keep making videos or if I'm going to go back to my life.

But I know one thing. I know that I'm not going to forget this. I'm not going to forget the dog crate or the crossbow or the frozen peas. I'm not going to forget Gunther or the parrots or the emails. I'm not going to forget any of it.

And I know that tomorrow, I'm going to wake up at six. I'm going to make coffee. I'm going to sit at my kitchen table. And I'm going to look at my phone.

And I'm going to wonder what happens next.