The One With Chico & Friends

“Come here you little bastard”, I muttered as I crept slowly toward the fugitive parrot that had escaped his cage. Although I had barely whispered, Chico must have heard me because he suddenly flew defiantly to the opposite end of the room. Benson, the giant Black Lab/Saint Bernard mix lay patiently as Chico obliviously approached the dog’s drooling mouth. I gave Benson a stern warning not to eat his buddy Chico before I managed to coax the dog outside while keeping the flying parrot inside.

I then tried a more pleasant approach to bird-catching - “Come here buddy, its time to go back into your nice home.” I continued to move cautiously toward the bird, whom perched on the couch – was finally standing his ground. I gently reached out my hand, hoping he would hop on like a normal bird; but instead was answered with three very quick, and very sharp pecks! The little shit had bit me! I yelped loudly, sending the bird fleeing back across the room. By the time I had inspected my hand for serious injury, Chico had gleefully flown back into his cage and was busying himself with preening his bright green feathers. Frustrated and annoyed, I pieced the roof back on the cage, hurled some colorful words at the bird, and then let the dog (who had been whining the entire past five minutes) back inside.

Welcome to housesitting at the Robb household.

I won’t even bother describing my fiasco with the two Chinchilla’s…

The past three weeks have been like a mini-vacation complete with all the unexpected adventures to boot.

To save you’re eyes, I’ll summarize:

A) So engrossed in watching an episode of Flight of the Concords, I burned a pot of rice so badly I could barley rescue the top layer.

B) When trying to “tidy up” the woodpile, I managed to initiate a domino effect of falling timber…all the way down the driveway.

C) I invited several co-workers over to enjoy the Jacuzzi – only to forget to turn the Jacuzzi on so we all reluctantly sat in luke-warm water for a few minutes before giving up and watching horror movies instead.

D) The car ran out of gas, in the middle of nowhere, driving from Arrowtown (where the Robb house is) to work in Queenstown.

E) Groggy and still half asleep, I fell at least half a flight of stairs before a frantic grab for the wall stopped me.

F) Walking past the family car, I noticed the radio had been ripped from the dashboard. I frantically called the police to make a theft report before the neighbor informed me the car had been like that for months.

G) I almost accidentally vacuumed up a Chinchilla tail when cleaning the poo out of the cage.

H) I lost the dog…kind of…twice.

All in all house-sitting was actually quite pleasant. I loved having a 2 story, 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom, huge front deck, Jacuzzi-and-surround-sound-filled house to myself for three weeks! Now its time to move onward and upward to my new crib! AKA, a garage that I pay $20 a week to park my van/house in and use all the facilities inside. At least my roommates are Irish, Welsh and Kiwi…things can only get better from here!

-Ashley

Fun fact: As an incentive to recycle, NZ charges $3.75 for a 15-liter waste bag that ALL NON-RECYCLNG MUST GO IN. So, recycling= FREE, landfill=heaps of $$$!