There I was minding my own business, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when a sound penetrated my concentration. "Beep, beep!" It was Tillie, hopping along her perch and eyeing my sandwich, all antsy for some. Again.

"Are you a peanut butter and jelly freak?" I asked her. "Beep," she said. Her hardware cloth cage has half-inch square openings which gives her ample space to snatch bites out of my sandwich as I press it against her cage wall. She obviously remembered having bread that way a few days ago, as she dove right in amd made a pig of herself.

It's a weird feeling to have a small bird yank at your sandwich like she'd like to gobble down the whole thing. Once she must have accidentally touched some peanut butter or jelly because she backed off and wiped her beak on her perch. That didn't get the nasty off her beak good enough, because she then went and dipped it for a drink. I thought she was done but as I resumed eating my lunch, she came back for more.

Her eyes were bigger than her stomach, I realized when I noticed she was dropping half the bites onto the floor. "Okay, the rest is mine," I told her. I took back my sandwich, examined it for holes. Yep, little pock marks in the bread. I smiled as I finished it off.

Article © Karen Wehrle 2003