The Parrot Joke

Did you hear the parrot joke from Sunday's sermon?

There was this man who bought a beautiful parrot. He admired its beauty and the novelty of having it—just one problem: that bird used foul language! The man’s parrot could swear for five minutes straight without repeating itself. What added to the difficulty was the embarrassment the man experienced when his dirty bird would cuss a blue streak in front of people!

The man tried everything! Behavior modification was first, rewarding the parrot for good speech and punishing the bird for the off-color stuff. It would work temporarily, but then his swearing would return with increased volume and frequency. One time, he blew his stack, grabbed the parrot and shook it hard, yelling, “Cut that out!” But this only made the parrot angry and he swore more than ever.

Well, that did it! The man tossed his beautiful parrot into the freezer. For the first few seconds the bird squawked and screamed and thrashed around, and then there was silence. A couple more minutes past without a sound and the man started envisioning his frozen parrot.

Uncertain what to expect, the man opened the freezer door, at which time the bird calmly climbed onto the man’s outstretched arm and said, “I’m really sorry about all the trouble I’ve been giving you. I make a solemn promise to clean up my language from now on.” The man was astounded. What could have accounted for this sudden transformation? The parrot cleared it up for him when he said, “I just have one question: What did that chicken in there do?”