Saturday, February 27, 2016

Solution for a joke of plastic parrots

Recently, I read an anecdote of plastic parrots. I found it in an English textbook, but it was repeatedly referred on the internet. I do not know which is the original.



The story-line is as below:

There are a father and his son. Father asks his son what he would like for his 15th birthday. The boy asked a plastic parrot. Father buy it for the boy, but soon after receiving it, the parrot disappear. Father feels strange, but he does not mention it.


The next year, the son requests six plastic parrots. And after getting them, parrots disappear.

The next year, the same thing happens. Father is confused, but the son never tells the reason he wants plastic parrots.

Finally, on his 19th birthday, the son ask for a whole room full of plastic parrots. Father realize his desire. And some days after, parrots vanishes.

Father is willing to ask what happened on the parrots. However, instead of his son appearing, the father receives a phone call. A hospital doctor tells the father that his son is dying due to an accident.

Father rushes the hospital, and begs his son to tell why he repeatedly wants plastic parrots, while concerning about his status.

He decides to tell the truth of his parrots, and make a final request of a plastic parrot to the father.

Father runs to a toy shop to get one. Seeing the plastic parrot, the son begins to tell the truth.

But immediately after open his mouth, the son dies.

Please do not get angry. It is a nonsense story. To be honest, I cannot understand why this anecdote is categorized to a joke.

There are some hypotheses of background the son gets plastic parrots again and again, as far as I imagine. Though I do not know the correct answer, I will explain it.

(1) The boy ate plastic parrots.
Indeed, there are some bacteria which can assimilate plastic. And there are a few case reports of a person who can eat metals. It is possible that the boy has an extraordinary ability.

(2) The boy vitalized plastic parrots.
This is rather a fairy-tale. The boy can create a life and inspire it to a puppet. Parrots flied away on their own.

(3) The plastic parrots contain something illegal.
Actually, in the variation of this story I read, the boy was finally involved in a gang shooting case. It imagined me that the boy had some relationship to a gang member. The storekeeper of the toy shop the father frequently visited was a smuggler, and enclosed something, like heroine, into plastic parrots. The boy was threatened by a gangster to make his father buy the parrots for sending them to their colleagues.

Which do you like as a solution to this mysterious story? Or, I am glad if you tell me about your great answer.

**Sequel

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