The Evil Telephone

A frightened phone peeks out from its protective cover.

Charli hates the phone. Whenever I have to use it she becomes enraged at the attention I seem forced to give it, rather than giving my attention to her.

Sometimes she'll bite me if I'm on the phone too long. I like to think she bites me to make me move away from the Evil Phone lest it eat me up altogether. Of course, that's a prime example of anthropomorphism -- in reality she's just jealous.

When I'm finished with the phone, I place it back in its cradle and then cover the unit with a dish towel. My theory was that if Charli can't see it she won't attack it.

This worked well for a few months, but now Charli delights in pulling off the dish towel and attacking the defenseless phone.

Some parrot-crazed person somewhere wrote in some parrot publication that she'd begun treating her phone like a "bad" bird.  She would shake her finger and scold it while her parrot looked on.

Naturally, as soon as I remembered this I tried it. If it worked for her, surely it would work for me, too. When I would finish a call, I began putting the phone in the cradle and then shaking my finger at it.

"Bad phone!" I would say. "Bad, bad phone!"  Charli would always watch this with great interest.

"I'm going to cover you up," I continued, "so you can think about what you've done!" Then I would drape the dish towel over the phone, frowning through the entire process.

Has it helped ease Charli's jealousy? Not really. After several weeks of "punishing" the "bad, bad" phone, Charli remains unfooled. 

She also takes spells where she attacks the computer keyboard, especially if my fingers are "playing" with it. All parrots know that fingers are to only play with parrot feathers and nothing else, and all parrot slaves should know that, too.

Is your parrot jealous of the telephone or the computer.? Or both? Have you been able to solve the issues?  Please tell us how!  My poor phone is beginning to have an inferiority complex.