Why in God’s name are my Greys such hellishly awful slobs? Seriously. I can clean up the place, change the papers in their rooms, dust and tidy up on Tuesday and by Thursday my place is a wreck again. What is inherently wrong with these little suckers?

I really try so hard and pull it together to really scrub the floor, wipe down their cages, wash their cage covers, (read: old sheets) I get it looking like the approximation of a regular home and Wham!  Two days later, it looks like a damned dump. I console myself with the fact that I’m at least still trying to make this place look normal…

I know, I know…it’s just the way they are. They can’t help the molting feathers and that inner burning desire to feed the slate tile little bits of their food. But Good God, these guys are pigs with wings.

And how in the hell do you explain it to someone who does not have birds? “Heh, heh, heh…birds. Gotta love ‘Em!” I truly marvel at my small flock’s ability to slob-out our home. And such little creatures! I’ve written about this burning issue in my column at BIRD TALK once or twice. I thought it would help. It didn’t.

Maggie, my “Guest Amazon”

Between Pepper throwing water out of her dish like it was the rainy season festival in Vietnam and Parker heaving crap over the side of his play gym, my place looks like “The place the circus was yesterday after they packed up and moved on.”  I’ve learned that you simply have to lighten up or you’re going to lose it. But I must state for the record that there is a big difference between, that lived-in look, and Holy Mother-Plucker, look at this dump!

So I have decided to devise a fun and light-hearted test to see just how bad things get at your house in regard to “Keeping up with the Psittacines.”

1. On the floor of your bird room there are…

A) One or two stray feathers lying around and maybe a a couple of toy shreds.

B) A pile of sweepings consisting of feathers, dander, food pellets, some dried poop and a piece of dried mango.waiting to be picked up with a dustpan and some newspapers that need to be thrown away.

C) “I am not sure there is still a floor under there…”

2. When you notice you are procrastinating, you…

A) Wander around the house staring at the cages and the dust tortured with pangs of guilt, torturing yourself for your lack of will to clean things up.

B) Mesmerize yourself with Facebook and answering every post, flip through the TV channels without finding anything real interesting and assure yourself it will be just a few more minutes before you REALLY get cracking.

C) Go out shopping, you are not getting anything done with their cages anyway…

3. You decide to finally clear out that pile of used toys when…

A) There are so many extra broken toy parts piled up that you don’t feel you have enough room to get anymore toys.

B) There are so many extra toys piled up that you feel you don’t have room for any newspapers you need for the cages.

C) Am I supposed to take care of this at some point?

4. Your bird supplies are organized by…

A) Species specific / cleaning supplies / food / toys / enrichment items / foraging items / treats / supplements-medication

B) Big bird stuff and little bird stuff

C) Things that are semi-bird related.

5. When you see someone approaching you at a bird event who’s name you’ve forgotten, you…

A) Avoid the subject and fake it as long as you can

B) Call them by the wrong name, and when they correct you, you say, “Yeah, that’s right! It’s just that you look like a Brenda!”

C) Simply admit you haven’t a clue and say, “I’m sorry, I simply don’t know who in God’s name you are. Little help here?”

5. When you know you won’t be able to meet a deadline for work, because trying to clean the bird room up is distracting you,  you…

A) Call in sick with the “bird flu.”

B) Turn in an approximation of a rough draft telling yourself it’s fine.

C) Move out of the house until the whole situation blows over or someone sneaks an and cleans that hell-hole up.

Bella relaxing…

How did you do? If you answered mostly A’s then you are heavily in denial of your inner slob. You have been lectured for so many years by Dominican Nuns that it is not okay to be disorganized, that you simply can’t live with yourself when you are. You forget to have fun, because you are too busy worrying about that perch you forgot to scrub.

If you answered mostly B’s you’re still a pretty well-organized slob, but your inner slob could use some rousing choruses of the song, Embraceable You. You have a miles to go before you can truly express the slob you are inside. Welcome to The Slob Side…I hope you you can live with a little dustiness.

If you answered mostly C’s, well, you might want to give that bird room another look-see. You are already a very content slob, but you may want to tidy up from time to time and look for ways that are easier to keep the place clean: like installing a floor drain. . The organized world has not yet entered your door, and while you have complete control of your own “inner slob,” “Keeping Up With the Psittacines” is going to require a tad more effort.