This week: Adventures In Moving Edited by: GeminiGem🐾  
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Hi there! I'm GeminiGem🐾 , one of the regular editors of the Comedy Newsletter. Come with me as a contest prompt has me flashing back to a particularly adventurous move. |
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ADVENTURES IN MOVING
(and other such nonsense)
efore I begin, I just want to say the subject of this newsletter is not my fault, I swear. No, really, it's not. I am going to throw "The Writer's Cramp" under the bus for this one. They had a prompt that was right up my alley. I was all set to write the story...(dramatic pause) when I realized it was yesterday's prompt. (If you are familiar with The Cramp, they give a prompt then you have 24 hours to write a story or poem.)
Curses, foiled again.
Anyway, now I have a story zipping all around my little writer's brain. I also have a muse who insists that I not be a tease and get on with the writing of the thing already. It is just your luck that I also have a newsletter deadline looming. And they do loom because I am a serial procrastinator.
Despite the fact that I thought my newsletter muse was done with the subject of traveling with pets see {see: "Road Trip" and "Does Your Dog Bite?" ), I just could not resist. This is the prompt The Cramp posted: Write a story or poem about taking a long road trip with a pet - the only catch is, the pet CANNOT be a dog or cat. Include what kind of pet the traveling companion is - and be creative. How does the pet travel in the car? How do hotels, etc. deal with the pet?
"But, Gem!" I hear you saying. "The story could not have been about your dogs anyway."
Ah ha! Here's a tidbit you may not know about me. Before my life went to the dogs, I had exotic birds. A lot of them. I had roughly 40 birds of all different types ranging from finches to Amazon Parrots.
started this bit of insanity when I was living in Michigan, putting my future ex-husband through law school. We planned to pack up our things and move to Colorado after he graduated. This is the story of how I traveled roughly 1300 miles across the center of the United States with all the birds in my brand-new 1988 Chevy Corsica.
I will mention that we also had a five-month-old Golden Retriever puppy with us. C'mon, you didn't really believe this would be a completely dog-free story, did you? The puppy rode in the cab of the U-Haul moving van with the future ex. The U-Haul was towing my very first car, my canary yellow Chevy Chevette. Now that was one hot car, let me tell you (read that last sentence with an edge of sarcasm). The Chevette would not have made it 1300 miles on its own power, since it was a hand-me-down gerbil-powered go-cart (and I say that in the most loving way possible).
We caravanned the vehicles the whole way, communicating with headsets that worked like walkie-talkies (remember, this was way before cell phones). I got annoyed with pressing the button on the control box every time I needed to say something, so I set it on voice-activate. After several miles, the future ex's voice came over my headset. "Ummm...did you change the setting on your headset?"
Me, being the sassy young thing said, "Yeah, why?"
He sighed. "There's a reason why I'm in the moving van with the puppy and you're in the Corsica with all those birds," he said. I realized he was trying his best to be diplomatic.
To move across country in a passenger car with "all those birds", I had to move them out of their big, roomy cages that they lived in into the smallest cage I could get them into. I also had to combine birds in the same cage that normally did not live together. To say my flock was displeased about all of these changes would be the understatement of the 1980's. One way birds show displeasure is by loud vocalizations.
One of the cockatiels had been separated from his cage mate. The other bird belonged to a friend (and would be staying in Michigan), and we didn't realize the two birds had bonded. He screamed for her all the way across the U.S.A.
Two of the Lovebirds were bunking together for the first time, and it was hate at first sight. They fought like something out of The Wild Kingdom, complete with furious screeching and aerial acrobatics.
When my Yellow-Naped Amazon Parrot was stressed she had the habit of saying "WUT" over and over in a morose tone of voice (think Eeyore, but without the antidepressants). She did this starting in Michigan and continuing to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
The finches and other small birds were busy figuring out their new territories, all at the top of their voices.
No wonder my future ex didn't want my walkie-talkie headset to be on voice-activate. The screeching, screaming, and "wut-ing" birds were constantly setting it off so he had to hear them piped straight into his ears. Oops.
This was not, however, why he ended up being my ex.
When we stopped for the night at a motel, I would unload all the bird cages and set them up where I could in the room. I would clean all of the cages from a day's worth of pooping in a much too small cage, and give them fresh food and water. As I was doing this, I would plan how much cash I would have to leave as a tip for the poor motel maid. I'm not sure why I cared since we would be many miles away by the time the maid would find the mess, but my conscience got the best of me. It also made me feel marginally better that we never told the motel when we made the reservations that we were traveling with a four-month-old puppy and 40 messy birds. In our defense, neither of us was aware that should be a thing we ought to do. Ah, to be young and ignorant.
We made it to our new home state with nerves still intact, despite the avian noise pollution. At least, the future ex-husband did. I learned a lot from that trip. The biggest thing I discovered was that I never again wanted to travel across the country with 40 unhappy birds.
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Bird Stories!
|  | Ricky (13+)
It all starts when a parakeet is left at their door.
#2016353 by Kotaro  |
A place to find a contest to enter your bird stories (or any other story or poem)
| | Contest Clues (E)
List of WdC Writing Contests, Challenges, Activities. Clues To What's Open, What's Closed!
#2221492 by GeminiGem🐾 |
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From my last Comedy Newsletter "Does Your Dog Bite?" , a selection of responses.
From NaNoNette 
I don't have a dog (yet?). But I have an orange cat. With all the Orange Cat Energy that comes with it.
Aw, I love me an orange kitty.
From Lilli 🧿 ☕ 
We know who's in charge of security at your house - LuLu! 
Yes, on occasion I will forget something. Nothing that I can't live without though.
LuLu is in charge, period 
From Cubby 
I tend to overpack, but I remember a time when we left at 11pm so we could get through Chicago before the traffic got bad. I had made several ham and cheese sandwiches for our road trip to Colorado and I forgot them!!! UGH! I was so bummed. 
Not the ham and cheese sandwiches! 
From Allan Charles 
My toothbrush. Always. Every time I go on a trip I end up buying a new toothbrush
At least you are consistent. 
From DRSmith
The Wife! Actually drove off without her and got about 5 miles when I realized I wasn't going too fast, made a wrong turn, or the radio was too loud. So went back to get her, using the time to concoct a plausible explanation.
Ummm...did you actually come up with a story she would accept?
From s
Oddly enough - underwear.
I suppose that would be an awkward time to try going commando? |
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Comedy: July 24, 2024 Issue [#12655]
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