“Hey Kate?” my manager said. We were on a team-wide conference call. “There’s something noisy going on in your background. What is that?”

I took a breath.

“Okay, funny story actually. On Friday my boyfriend and I brought home a parrot, an African Grey. His name is Gary. He’s a very good bird, very well-behaved. For the first day, at least.

“Then all of a sudden Saturday morning, Gary starts beatboxing. I didn’t realise he was beatboxing at first, I thought, okay, I actually thought Gary was having a coughing fit, or maybe he was choking on nuts? Okay the point was I wasn’t thinking and so I said ‘Ben, I think something’s wrong with Gary, should we get this checked out?’ and he was like, no, sweetie, he’s beatboxing, and I was thinking to myself, is this just a normal thing that parrots do and everybody knows about except for me? But Gary definitely heard us because he started bobbing his little grey head and beatboxing harder, all these emphatic plosives and skittering clicks and percussives and record scratches from that little voice-box of his.

“And I was like, okay, sure, I can live with a beatboxing parrot. It’s actually kinda neat. We set up a mic for him, next to the birdseed dispenser. Ben’s really into audio, he set up this surround sound system and all of a sudden our living room’s a club floor, all this earth-shaking drum-and-bass pounding out of this one bird. It was so much fun for a while, we even had friends over and put up a disco ball and got trashed.

“But then I wake up on Sunday morning and Gary’s right there, on my bedside table, beatboxing furiously at me. It’s like six in the morning, and light hasn’t even crept through the curtains, and I don’t even think he’s slept. Gary, I mean. Ben’s still sound asleep, he had a lot to drink. And now I’m worrying. Should I get this checked out? Should I take Gary to the vet? We don’t even have a vet yet, the closest thing we have to a parrot expert was the shop we bought him from, so I get out of bed and drive Gary back there. And there’s the same lady, and Gary’s beatboxing meekly, and I ask her, ‘So, our parrot has been beatboxing nonstop since yesterday morning. Is that normal?’

“And she says, ‘Oh, that just means that he needs rapper friends. Parrots are social animals, after all.’

“And I’m like, rapper friends?

“And she says, ‘Yes! He keeps beatboxing because he’s waiting for someone to spit some fresh bars over his beats.’

“I have no idea if this is normal for parrots. Also I can’t rap, please don’t ask me, and also I don’t think I have any friends who are rappers, and I tell her all that. And she says, ‘That’s okay! The folks over at Bonnie Lee’s will be able to help you with that.’

“And I’m like, who’s Bonnie Lee?

“And she gives me this address. It’s across town, but hey, I have nothing better to do on a Sunday morning, I’d probably still be asleep.

“So anyways half an hour later and now I’m wandering through a part of town I never knew existed and it’s kinda sketch and Bonnie Lee’s is just a small room that’s empty except for a woman and a desk, and she says, ‘Hi, how can I help you?’

“And I tell her about Gary and his nonstop beatboxing, and how he needs some rapper friends and that’s why I’m here, although I don’t know how she thinks you’re supposed to help me. Also at some point I called her Bonnie, and she said, ‘My name’s not Bonnie, that’s just the name of our founder, my name’s actually Lynette’, and I felt so embarrassed. Like, I was so sorry, I just assumed—”

“Anyhow, that part’s not relevant, and she, Lynette, says, ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place. Welcome to Bonnie Lee’s Emporium of Rapping Parrots.’ And I’m like, whaat? And then she very casually gets up and saunters to the door at the back that somehow I never noticed and she opens it and you wouldn’t believe. Parrots everywhere. Blues, greens, greys, with technicolour beaks, all a-flapping and a-chattering.

“And she tells me, ‘All of our parrots are raised on rap. Old-skool party rap records, conscious hip hop, Golden Age, hip hop soul, all the way up to to-day’s trap and mumble rappers. Each parrot imprints upon a different body of work. Some of them study entire genres. Like for example here are our G-funk parrots, bringing back that whole Dr. Dre Snoop Dogg West Coast gangsta rap era. Others deep-dive into a specific artist. Our Kendrick parrots have been pretty popular these days.’

“And she might have said more, but it flew over my head because Gary had already flown over to a cage of cockatiels and it looked like he was having a good time with them. Like, he was really vibing with these two, they were doing like this chirpy parrot rapping over his beats. So I said to her, ‘Can I have these two?’

“And she says, ‘Sure, that’ll be $300.’

“And next thing I know, I’m driving back with three parrot passengers. And I get back, and Ben’s still asleep, and I nudge him and I’m like, hey, guess what? And he’s like whoa! That’s neat! What are their names? And I tell him, this one’s Rosie and this one’s Pixie. I thought of that in the car. And he’s like, sure! Are they friends for Gary? And I’m like, just you wait.

“That afternoon the parrots are jamming, having a cute little parrot party, and then they actually stop for a while and have a little parrot nap. Which is like, cool, that’s what they needed. That’s what I needed, too.

“But later they’re up again and they’re tossing furious bars over Gary’s beats. Gary’s also sort of like MC-ing now, and they’re having this rap battle. And they’re saying some pretty nasty things at each other, dissing each other in their chirpy parrot flows. Also Rosie is calling herself Biggie, and Pixie is calling herself Tupac, so Ben and I decided, well okay those are their names now.

“Anyhow, long story short, that’s how I learned the whole East Coast-West Coast rivalry was a thing. Also, sorry, but yeah, that’s probably what you’re overhearing on my speaker, I can mute myself,” I did not say.

“Oh, it’s just the laundry, I can mute myself,” I actually said.