Whababababababaaaaahhhh...(click)...Whababababaaaahhhhhh-ssss....(click)....ARUMBUMBUMBUMBUMMMMM--BUMMMMMM...SCREEETCHH!

Whababababababaaaaahhhh...(click)...Whababababaaaahhhhhh-ssss....(click)....ARUMBUMBUMBUMBUMMMMM--BUMMMMMM...SCREEETCHH! "YEEE-HAWWW!"

Toni knew she never should have taught her cowboy parrot how to leave voice mails.

Please leave a message at the beep - "SQUAK! HOWDY-HOWDY-HOWDY! BILLY-BOB WANTS A CRACKER! SQUAK!" Toni had to take 'care' of that bird.

Should he cover it in tar and see what happens? It sounded cruel but tar was everywhere and he could always wash it off if the parrot had a hard time breathing. "KWAK?"

On second thought, I pulled the pure maple syrup from the kitchen cabinet and let the bird take a whiff. Do parrots have noses? I started to wonder.

just before I awoke with a start. "What a strange dream," I said. "FEED IT CEREAL" came the voice again, followed by "SYSTEM ERROR TWO ZERO FOUR DATABASE CORRUPTION--" I shook my

dandruff from my pillow and fed some fistfuls of Froot Loops into the giggling little robot's butt hatch. That'd fix its database and stop my alarm clock from bossing me around!

We made shapes from tape and made to fight the night. At 6AM, the noise was back: its blistering tone awoke us, reminding us of our routines. Why I hadn't thought to keep a hammer

under the bed. But just boarding the door shut would not have drowned the shrieking noise that brought a chills through our bones.