Dear Prudence,
My wife “Angie” has created a difficult situation with our neighbors by blowing what I think is something trivial completely out of proportion. Last month, our daughter and her family needed to stay at our place for a week while their furnace and duct work were undergoing replacement. They have young children and could not remain in the house without heat. My wife and I have an parrot, “Ray,” and our grandson is allergic to birds. Luckily, our neighbors “John” and “Sally” were kind enough to take Ray for the duration of the time my daughter and her family needed to stay with us.
The week passed uneventfully, and John dropped Ray off back home as soon as my daughter and her family left. I returned from getting the mail later that day to find my wife on the phone screaming at Sally and accusing her and John of “corrupting” Ray. I quickly took the phone away from her, apologized, hung up, and asked what was going on. Angie said that Ray was making what she described as “sex noises” and that John and Sally must have taught them to him. After about 10 minutes, Ray let loose with a string of what sounded like a man and a woman crying out while having intercourse. I called Sally back and told her what I had heard from the parrot and asked her if she had any idea where he might have learned it. Sally was greatly embarrassed and asked if she could come over to explain what had happened.
Sally told us that she and John had kept Ray in their bedroom with the door closed the entire time they had him because they have two cats and wanted to make sure he stayed safe. She said there were several nights when she and John had been intimate. Sally apologized profusely and said she and John would have held off had they known Ray might mimic the noise from their activities. I told her that it was OK and joked that we would “wash his beak out with soap,” but Angie angrily told her to leave our house and never come back. Sally hurried out; I managed to catch up to her outside. I apologized for my wife’s behavior and told her to give her some time to cool off.
Since then I looked up some information on re-training parrots on the internet and learned not to give a reaction to negative behaviors and to try and teach new words and give rewards for positive behavior. It’s been working—Ray is making the “bedroom noises” a little less each day. Unfortunately, things are not going so smoothly with Angie. My wife is holding a grudge; she won’t even so much as wave to Sally or John when she sees them in the neighborhood. She says as far as she’s concerned, we’re done with them. Sally and John are very nice people and they did us a tremendous favor at a moment’s notice even if Ray did inadvertently end up learning some inappropriate sounds. I think Angie is being ridiculous and I don’t want to lose their friendship over something so insignificant. Any suggestions on how to get her to relent?
—The Bird Who Heard Too Much