Custody Battle aka Ich Mochte mein Vogel

When I was in the fourth grade, my parents told me if I did enough research I could have a bird. My entire family is ridiculously allergic to cats, so they were out of the question. My father happens to also be allergic to dogs...no deal. Fish are boring. Ferrets smell (and have fur). Bunnies...fur. You get the idea. My only chance at a real pet was a bird.

I don't think my parents were prepared for the level of stubborn they'd created in me. In fact, in view of recent events, I'm rather confident they're STILL not quite aware of how far I will go to get just what I want. As an 8-year-old, I checked out every single book about cockatiels from the Seattle Public Library. I read them cover to cover. Multiple times. My knowledge of cockatiels is sick. Anyway, my parentals finally had to follow through on their promise and our little family trekked off to Wings of the World.

On visit one, there were no baby cockatiels. I checked out Quaker Parrots, parakeets (too small), Lorikeets (too expensive) etc etc...I did not find my bird. On family trek number two, there they were. Four baby birds, still scrawny and quietly screechy. A baby bird crying kind of sounds like raspy, chalk on a chalkboard sound. It's weird. But distinct. Anyway. There were four babies. One had already been claimed and named 'Tango.' Two were sleeping. Then there was the fourth...he was alert...running around...and as interested in me as I was in him. THAT was my bird.

Pippin came home three weeks later. We had to feed him baby formula out of a syringe twice a day, at breakfast and dinner. He would cry, wiggle his head, get 90% of his formula on his feathers rather than in his beak and then you'd see his belly bulge a bit and he'd calm down. The rest of the day he was forced to learn to eat seeds like a 'big boy bird'.

For the first few months of his life I read him a bedtime story every night. Yeah. I read stories to my baby bird. That's called LOVE, DEDICATION (and batshit crazy). My mother taught him to whistle a song from Le Nozze di Figaro, the name of which escapes me right now (most likely because once again it is 2am), which he sings loudly, proudly and incorrectly at the height of his joy. He is a very happy bird. He also plays peekaboo (Oh no! Where's Pippin? Where is he? I can't find him! Oh no, where's my little Pippin-boo...at which point he cocks his head and screams "Peeeeeekabooooooo") and likes to hide under and sing to tissues. He's a weird bird.

He's a REALLY weird bird and I LOVE HIM.

Which brings us to the custody battle and a test of how stubborn both my parents and I can be about this situation:

*I've recently moved into a new room in my apartment that is large enough to happily house both Pippin and me. Therefore, I want my bird. Have I mentioned I love him? He is the light of my life.

*I mentioned my newfound bird-housing capabilities to my mother, who in turn went on and on about how much responsibility it would be to have him. Her 'strongest' argument was that I'd have to buy 'Pippin food' and that might not be easy to do. Mom: I live in NYC. Everything is fairly easy to acquire. Especially 'Pippin food' seeing as there is a Petsmart two blocks away...

*After my failed Pippin-housing pitch to my mother, I figured I'd try my father. My father has a way of not hearing things he's not interested in dealing with. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I began text messaging my father. In German. -note: The best part about being German and using the German language is that it aids an air of "I am so serious it is scary" to anything you say.- I bombarded him, showing off my German vocabulary throughout a truly unnecessary number of texts and in return, I got ONE, UNO, EINS (in English nonetheless), completely ignoring my impressive demands to have my bird returned to me, and instead a) informing me that it was late and b) would I please stop bothering him so he could go to sleep.

Psh.

Obviously I'm going to have to take this custody battle to the next level...the only logical action I can think of is birdnapping. I'll let you know how it goes.