Budgies and Good Service

I’ve had dogs, cats, hamsters, horses, guinea pigs, turtles, crickets and birds; and birds may be my favorite. I love them because they sing. Budgies are the best singers, rather like little clarinet warblers. Budgies also have gloriously colored feathers, better even than the gloss of polished Bentley ravens because while ravens’ beauty takes breath away, budgies’ beauty makes us breathe more deeply.

Recently I decided to buy 6 new budgies, 4 hens and 2 cocks, from a national breeder in Texas, Carroll Myers. Carroll’s budgies are ranked 3^rd in the nation, and he has the most helpful manner so dealing with him is as much a pleasure as enjoying his birds. The Tuesday after Memorial Day, Carroll shipped 6 birds from Texas to my office in Florida. The birds were shipped express mail in an approved box saying LIVE BIRDS. Express mail means they would arrive within 24 hours—36 at the latest. When the birds had not arrived Wednesday noon, I began calling Carroll who began calling the post office. The post office employee he spoke with said they would find the birds and call back. Carroll told me not to worry because he believed the postal employee would call as he promised.

But you already know what happened. Nothing happened. No one from the post office called.

By Thursday morning the birds had been in a box on route almost 48 hours. They had moistened carrots and millet seed, but birds are creatures of light and air, easily frightened and easily dehydrated. Little budgies weigh 2-3 ounces. They are naturally rather dry because water is weight and weighty creatures don’t fly. In this way, birds are rather like leaves on a tree that once they fall off and don’t receive water, wilt and die.

Imagining the birds wilting, I called Carlos Berrio who handles our company’s account with the post office. Within half an hour Carlos had a customer service person contact me that the birds were at a local post office. The customer service contact said the manager of the post office was busy and did not have plans to deliver the birds within the next hour. I said I’d pick them up immediately, which anyone driving that 2 mile stretch of road can tell you I did.

But you already know what happened. And you probably know whether or not you would have yelled at the counter person. I did. I could see the bird box sitting on the floor directly behind a 6-foot grey-haired guy named Mike. “How can you let those birds sit there and not do something? They are supposed to be delivered within 24 hours, and here it is 2 days already!“ And of course, you know that Mike didn’t care two hoots. “Look lady, he said, “I sell stamps. It’s not my responsibility.”

And you’ve guessed that when I got the birds home and opened the box, the prized violet hen was bloodied and dead. The 5 other birds were limp, but fortunately I am a veterinarian and know how to hydrate an almost lifeless creature. Today the 5 budgies are up off the floor of the aviary, sitting together, but they haven’t made a peep. They have not sung a note since they got here.

And of course you already know this won’t matter to the post office. Except, perhaps, to an employee like Carlos Berrio. There are 5 little birds that are alive because of him. Thank you, Carlos.