"CUBES"
BY Doug Roberts
reprinted with author permission

There is a related phenomenon called Cascading UBEs, or CUBES. Take last night, for example. All 11 birdies in the Roberts household were sitting on their eight perches, happily eating dinner, picking their noses, whatever, when Gertchie Birdy, B&G suddenly realized that he had a UBE.

Naturally, he launched himself off of his perch, but the non-specific nature of his UBE didn't indicate which direction he needed to fly off to. He, therefore, circled his perch. (Tower, I'm going around again). On the third circuit he was maybe getting a little dizzy, because he suddenly veered south (all the while maintaining altitude at three feet; tower-circling altitude). The problem is is that the big picture windows are due south of the Tower (perch). Two feet due south.

About then is when I heard the distinctive "Bonk" of macaw beak against glass. It wasn't a loud "Bonk". It was about the volume of "Bonk" one might expect from a large blue and gold flying turkey cruising at Tower-circling speed whose forward momentum was suddenly impeded by a double-paned window.

However, it was a "Bonk" that was just loud enough to cause this UBE to cascade into a CUBE. The resonant sound of the "Bonk" was still echoing in my ears as Opus, CAG, launched himself off of his own perch and rocketed due north. He ended up in the bird room at the other end of the house.

Meanwhile, the B&G turkey had finished flying vertically (down), his big honker pressed against the glass the whole way. Time to try helicopter mode. Yep. In a flurry of feathers and disgarded dinner remnants (pasta) the large thrashing macaw managed to initiate a reverse vertical flight back up the window, honker still firmly implanted against the glass.

This, naturally enough, caused Sancho, Jezabel, and Maynard to declare their own UBEs. Airborne.

The Caique, Bandit, when into Caique UBE-alarm mode, but none of the windows shattered. Pink Floyd, of course added his dulcet MullucanNuclearAttackWarning notes to the melee. Lilly, U'too simply observed (These guys are bozos).

When the dust settled, and the panic-poop-streaks had all been cleaned up from the floor, we resumed our (normal, for us) evening. Until the next CUBE..........