Chippie the
parakeet never saw it coming. One second he was peacefully perched in his cage.
The next he was sucked in, washed up, and blown over.
The problems
began when Chippie's owner decided to clean Chippie's cage with a vacuum
cleaner. She removed the attachment from the end of the hose and stuck it in
the cage. The phone rang, and she turned to pick it up. She'd barely said
"hello" when "ssssopp!" Chippie got sucked in.
The bird owner
gasped, put down the phone, turned off the vacuum, and opened the bag. There
was Chippie -- still alive, but stunned.
Since the
bird was covered with dust and soot, she grabbed him and raced to the bathroom,
turned on the faucet, and held Chippie under the running water. Then, realizing
that Chippie was soaked and shivering, she did what any compassionate bird
owner would do . . . she reached for the hair dryer and blasted the pet with
hot air.
Poor Chippie
never knew what hit him.
A few days
after the trauma, the reporter who'd initially written about the event
contacted Chippie's owner to see how the bird was recovering. "Well,"
she replied, "Chippie doesn't sing much anymore -- he just sits and
stares."
It's hard
not to see why. Sucked in, washed up, and blown over . . . That's enough to
steal the song from the stoutest heart. -Max Lucado, In the Eye of the Storm, Word
Publishing, 1991, p. 11.
