Polly want a medal or a monument?

From the Associated Press: In November, the cries of alarm from Willie, a Quaker parrot from Denver, Colo., alerted his owner, Megan Howard, that the toddler she was babysitting was choking. His yells of "Mama, baby" led Howard to perform the Heimlich maneuver and earned Willie the local Red Cross chapter's Animal Lifesaver Award on Friday.

I had to smile when I saw this story because when I was growing up, almost the exact same thing happened to me! Tweetie, our family parakeet (named by me when I was five!) was not really what you would call a friendly bird. He mostly preferred to hang out in his cage and once he even bit my poor grandma on the hand. I spent many hours trying to get our beloved family pet to say “hello” or “pretty bird!” to no avail.

Then one day I was eating my Froot Loops in the kitchen when my mother was distracted by an infomercial for Joan Rivers jewelry. A single, orange Froot Loop became lodged in my tiny, five year-old throat and I started to choke. That was when Tweetie altered my mother to my impending doom by uttering the only three words he ever said:
“Die, motherfucker, die!”