Genetic Engineering and Brooding Parrots

Note: I asked a friend to read through this post for an evaluation before sending it to my blog.  My friend responded with: “It’s imaginative and somewhat humorous although it doesn’t make any sense to me.  But then making sense is most likely not your intention.”  Frankly, that sounds pretty grim.  I decided to post this mess anyhow.  My apologies.

Genetic Engineering and Brooding Parrots

Occasionally, and sometimes with a certain level of derision, the name Hans Signal Blinker still surfaces in conversations within genetics labs.  Mr. Blinker is regarded as something of a pioneer in the field of genetic engineering.  He was also known for always wearing a coonskin hat and packing a single-shot musket around the lab.

Blinker, a practical man, skipped the often requisite college training in genetics and began his work on genetic engineering employing only his gut instincts and what some referred to as “his daddy’s money.”  He squandered the first three years of his work in an attempt to engineer an orange tabby housecat that might also function as a footbridge across small streams of water immediately following natural disasters.  The project met with some success functionally, though a large portion of the people who took in the cats found themselves allergic to crossing the cats once they had transformed into a bridge.  Other people who took in the cats complained that they preferred a bridge that fetched sticks.

Mr. Blinker soon embarked on a new project—this time to genetically alter a group of parrots that could change both colors and feather patterns to match a variety of lovely wallpapers.  When questioned about the validity of such work Hans replied, “And I suppose that next you’ll doubt the validity of my efforts to develop a strain of carp that can teach aerobics classes between the hours of seven and ten in the morning?”

Again, Hans Signal Blinker initially met with some success.  Sadly, the first dozen parrots were shipped to a pet store in Southern California (an area noted for particularly trendy and often irrational interior design).  The parrots sold quickly and found themselves in homes raging with tie-dye patterned wallpapers.  Two of the birds eventually escaped and joined a scantily clad dance troupe heading for Canada.  Five others kept insisting that they wanted a cracker.  Four of the remaining five parrots, after failing to match the tie-dye wallpaper patterns, turned black and required constant solace for all of their brooding.  The last parrot took up painting with acrylics.  Holding the paintbrush in its beak, the bird rapidly produced Picasso knock-offs.  The owner of this bird, Mrs. Emily Rhodes, secured an agent and began booking talkshow appearances for the parrot.  “My bird,” she said with great pride, “holds the brush with his pecker!”

Hans Blinker eventually abandoned his lab research, humiliated by the failure of his parrots.  He soon embarked on the door-to-door sales of punchlines for obscure and sexually connotative jokes.  His favorite (and best-selling) line went something like this: “And the shaved monkey danced all the rest of the night.”     

--Mitchell Hegman  (Again, with apologies)