I'm not, by nature, a squeamish person. In fact, it's becoming increasingly difficult to offend my sensibilities. But would not common courtesy suggest a simple,"Hey, Erik. Those lab charts you're gonna be working on? Yeah, those. Those have photos of the patients' colonoscopy results. . . just a head's up, there, buddy."?

My homeboy has a page, and it went and got all gussied up just for you. Ladies and gentlemen, Dave. Dave, everybody.

About a week ago I saw a spot on the local news about some affluent fuck living here in the Crescent that lost his/her very special bird. I forgot what kind of bird it was, exactly, but they were offering more than just a few pesos as a reward for its return. So, never willing to pass up a chance to be flip, my roommates and I started making plans, quite in jest, for the tracking and subsequent capture of the bird in question. This petty amusement in making such oaths passed by quickly, and within minutes I think we'd all forgotten about the stupid, missing bird.
Skip ahead a few days and you'll find me unassumingly strolling down the street on my way home from work. While my mind is a-buzz with all the obsessions and distractions that float casually in and out of my thoughts, I glance up ahead and see a strange looking bird a few trees away. As I close the distance, I can tell that this bird is not a native Louisianian. It looks like some sort of cockatiel or parrot; emerald green with a tuft of crimson just above its beak. Naturally, I believed this to be the same bird I'd heard (word) mentioned on the news program a few evenings earlier, and, as I stood there looking up into the tallest branches of this red oak tree, I couldn't have felt more impotent. How small I seemed. How the hell was I going to catch that fucker? I could only imagine making feeble attempts at scurrying up the tree's trunk while the drivers of passing cars turn to their loved ones saying,"Don't the crazies usually keep to the other side of town?" Not to mention the conversation I would be forced to participate in once the authorities arrived to investigate the "damn-fool-who-was-climbing-up-my-tree". Well. Lost cause I say. Better luck next time I say, though the little, back-of-the-mind, hurtfully ironic voice I harbor chirps in with estimates of the probabilities of ever having seen the bird at all. Some luck. I continue on my walk. I decide that I definitely need a nap.
I napped, ate, slept, woke, worked, blah'ed, and a few days still yet more later still I mention, to my roommates (who, if not plainly evident to my readership, are really the only people I come into contact with), the newscast we saw and if they remember what type of bird it was that was missing. They don't, but then I tell them about the misplaced, exotic bird I saw flitting about earlier that week. Dave tells me he's seen the same kind of bird near Carrollton, and that they are more common than I think because, while not an indigenous species, a group of them seems to have escaped from the zoo. Ahhhhahaha. Okay. That is funny. So, add to the list "escaped zoo animals" and your understanding of this silly, silly town clears up a shade. Or so you tell yourself.