For our anniversary, my husband bought me a Minah bird. I didn’t believe that you could teach a bird to talk, but he had already gained a small vocabulary before we got him. He was used to yelling, ‘Get Out!’ whenever someone came in the house. He would shout, ‘It’s that woman!’ if he heard a woman’s voice. I thought it would be fun to teach him other phrases. Within two years, he was saying good morning to me and my husband, and calling us by name. When I got him to say Nevermore, I thought it was cute. Unfortunately, the only time he would say Nevermore, was when the HVAC technician was at the house. I found this out when the HVAC technician came to discuss installing a new air conditioning unit. We started getting into the pricing according to efficiency and tonnage, and Bill yelled Nevermore to the HVAC technician. Whenever money was mentioned, Billy yelled Nevermore. The HVAC technician laughed and said we had a pretty smart bird, but my husband wasn’t laughing. He told me that if the bird said Nevermore one more time, he was going to be tomorrow’s dinner. He whistled and said nevermore again, but this time he meant it. He didn’t say it again while the HVAC technician was discussing pricing with us. Two days later, billy got out the window. The HVAC technician was knocking on our door, and he asked if we lost something. He said he knew the bird was ours, because he sat on his service van yelling nevermore.