Craige: Cosmo's practical joke showed some strength
18.05.12
Although today is April Fool’s Day, I will not fool you. But I will tell you how Cosmo fooled me, for her own entertainment, when she was just a chick.
I think Cosmo was hatched with a sense of humor. Before she could talk, my baby African Grey Parrot mimicked all the sounds of the house: the squeaks of cabinet doors, the peeps of microwave and oven, the ring of the phone. Before I’d open the door to the garage, she’d mimic its creak.
One day, when she was 7 or 8 months old, Cosmo watched me roast green chili peppers in the oven, as I had learned to do in my long-vanished youth in El Paso, Texas. As the peppers blackened, their marvelous aroma filled the kitchen. Then the smoke billowing out of the oven set off the smoke alarm. VEEEEP. I rushed around turning on fans and opening doors and windows. The smoke alarm stopped.
Apparently, Cosmo noticed.
Two months later, I roasted chili peppers again. Just as they began to smell really good, I heard the smoke alarm. VEEEEP. Oh, no! In a panic I hurriedly turned on the fans and opened the doors and windows. But there was no smoke. I looked at the alarm on the wall, near Cosmo’s perch. The alarm stopped. I turned back to the oven. The alarm started. VEEEEP. I looked up. It stopped. So I disconnected it from the wall. But when I turned away there came one more VEEEEP — from Cosmo.
Source: Online Athens