People identify with animals for a myriad of reasons—the grace of a timber wolf, the memory of an elephant, the… uh, hornieness of rabbits—but, in all honesty, I’ve never really understood why some felt such a kinship with an animal.
That changed when I heard about Jessie, a blue and yellow macaw. Jessie flew onto her neighbours’ roof in the Edmonton neighbourhood in north London. There she stayed for three days, long enough that her owners thought she was injured. So, in order to help their little birdie, they called in the London Fire Brigade.
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When the authorities showed up they were told by the owners that in order create trust with the macaw they should tell Jessie they loved her and so they did. The parrot responded to these claims of love succinctly and thoroughly with a “fuck you.”
“We were told that to bond with the parrot, you have to tell her ‘I love you,’ which is exactly what the crew manager did,” Chris Swallow, one of the rescuers, said. “While Jessie responded ‘I love you’ back, we then discovered that she had a bit of a foul mouth and kept swearing, much to our amusement.”
After telling the firefighters exactly what she thought of them, Jessie then proved that she wasn’t injured and flew away, first to a tree, than eventually to her owner.
This is a creature that, on its own volition, made its way to a dangerous spot isolated from those who love it. Then when some people tried to help and express their love, she decided the best approach would be to tell those people to go fuck themselves.
I feel you, Jessie… I feel you.
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