Veronica: And I fell in love with her immediately. And, you know, I was still in high school. I had no money whatsoever.

Ira Glass: How expensive was she?

Veronica: Well, the price tag on the cage said $1400, which was an inordinate amount of money.

Ira Glass: So how long did it take you to pay off the bird?

Veronica: It took me about five years to pay her off, working part-time jobs, babysitting.

Ira Glass: And what did you love about her? What was the thing that drew you to her?

Veronica: I find it hard to say, exactly, why I was drawn to her. I thought she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. It's hard to describe how it feels to love an animal. But as soon as I saw her face, I just thought she was the most beautiful thing, and I had to have her, and I wanted to see that face every day, and I wanted to care for her. And I didn't know anything about bringing up parrots, or feeding them, or caring for them. I just wanted to take her home like a big-- like a treasure.

XXX

Veronica: And get into things she shouldn't get into, like a baby-- climbing into laundry baskets and ripping up clothes, and taking the kids' Pokemon cards and ripping them to shreds, and pulling newspapers out of boxes.

Ira Glass: And so at breakfast, you've got three little kids there.

Veronica: The kids will interact with each other. And Gideon will scream as loud as she can over their heads.

Ira Glass: Now let's play a recording of Gideon for people at home.

Ira Glass: It sounds really loud.

Veronica: It's intolerable. It's a sound that you don't want to hear.

Ira Glass: It sounds very dinosaur-like.

Veronica: Yeah. Well--

Ira Glass: The word you just used was intolerable?

Veronica: It's the most unpleasant sound I think I have ever heard.

Ira Glass: But you've lived with this sound for 23 years.

Veronica: I've lived with that sound for 23 years. It's in my dreams. It's wherever I go. It's in the kitchen. It's in the dining room. It's in my bedroom. And the kids have grown up with her. So they won't really notice it at first. But after about the fourth or fifth scream, they will start covering their ears and shouting back at the bird.

Cameron: You stop it please? Mommy, will you take me and put her in the tree?

Ira Glass: Now you tape little interviews with your kids about Gideon. Here's Cameron, who's five.

Veronica: Do you like having Gideon in the family?

Cameron: Not really.

Veronica: Would you rather that she went somewhere else?

Cameron: Yeah. All the way to Sco-- to England. Because I don't want her to scream when we're watching TV.

Veronica: Would you rather have a different kind of pet than Gideon?

Cameron: Yeah. A dog that is really nice and doesn't bite and doesn't bark.

Veronica: But do you understand why mommy loves Gideon?

Cameron: No.

Ira Glass: This is Kyle, the other twin, also five.

Kyle: One time she just almost bited off my thumb. That kind of scared me.

Veronica: They're terrified of Gideon. If they're approached by her, they'll immediately scream and run away. They won't go near her now.

Ira Glass: And is that because Gideon is, in fact, a little dangerous? They're right to be a little scared?

Veronica: Well, Gideon's primary objective in life is to be my mate. And so every other person or creature that comes near me is a threat to our relationship. And my children are a very big threat to our relationship because we have physical contact with each other. She sees me carrying them and cooking for them and touching them and picking them up. And so she has a desire to kill them, basically. I mean, in the bird world, she would kill another predator or some intrusive love interest.

Ira Glass: Now after your kids were born and you saw how Gideon reacted to your children, and you saw how your children reacted to Gideon-- they were scared, that Gideon bit Kyle-- did it change your feelings about Gideon?

Veronica: I don't think anything can change my feelings about Gideon.

Ira Glass: But if I had a dog that I loved, and then I had a new baby in the house, and the dog was hostile towards the baby, I wouldn't feel the same way about the dog. I would feel protective of my kid, which I'm sure you did.

Veronica: Well, I do feel protective of the children, and I take certain steps to protect them from her, but I can't stop loving her because of her natural tendency to want to drive away competition.

XXX

Kyle: I just don't know why you had to buy her. How much bucks was she?

Veronica: She cost a lot of money.

Kyle: Like how much money?

Veronica: She cost like $1400.

Kyle: Whoa, just for a parrot? Why would they do that? Hi.
