Polly wants a carjacker.

Several years ago, I was compelled to visit the home of some rich people with whom I was not particularly acquainted. A number of snobby socialite-types were also visiting this home, and I’d be lying if I said that I had anything less than unbridled contempt for most of these unpleasant individuals.

The owners of this home had some sort of a rare parrot, of which they were justifiably proud. It was a pleasant-enough creature, living in a small cage in their well-appointed living room, where it seemed to enjoy the affections of the visitors. Although the bird didn’t speak, it did release squawks and coos pretty regularly, to the delight of observers. The bird’s owners had apparently acquired the creature from a pet shop relatively recently, at least recently enough that it was still amusing to them.

What made this parrot noteworthy was its remarkable cry. Every fifteen minutes or so, it would, without warning, let out a sixty-second-long series of oddly familiar screeches and amelodic tones. It began with sixteen wailing noises, and then another sixteen that were slightly different than the first set. Then there were a series of eight descending swoopy bits, two longer ascending swoops, and then a solid twenty seconds of staccato tones to wrap things up. The alarming performance was a conversation-stopper every time. In fact, the volume and nature of the display was such that it was quite impossible to ignore. The bluebloods in the room tried to conceal their puzzlement at this strange display, lest they appear ignorant of the finer points of rare-bird collecting, and made weak efforts to describe this behavior as inherent to the breed.

This explanation was wholly unsatisfactory to me, particularly because the cry was just so familiar. I found myself sounding out the tune, such as it was, for hours, in an attempt to determine how it was that it sounded so familiar. Gradually, a context for this sound dawned on me until, all at once, I figured it out.

Imagine my pleasure when it clicked: the native cry of this rare, expensive parrot was nothing more than the mimicked tones of a car alarm.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »