THE PARROT
The Reverend Lars Anderson, pastor of South Branch's Bethlehem
(Swedish) Lutheran Church, spent several years in the U.S. Navy.
It wasn't during wartime, so it was a real pleasant stint because
he was on a ship that often docked on the tropical islands in
the South Pacific. 
 
During that time, Pastor Lars developed a love for exotic tropical
birds -- especially the ones that talked. Just recently, he bought
himself a parrot down at the Fridley Pet Store, and was pretty
excited about it until the problems started. 

The bird hadn't talked at all the first 3 weeks, but Lars thought
that was just part of being in a new place. Then one night when
the church Board of Trustees was meeting at Lars' house,
the parrot cut loose with a 10 minute stream of swear words
that turned the air blue, and shocked the trustees to death!
I mean, there were words that would make a veteran sailor
turn red as a beet! Pastor Lars was so totally embarrassed
that he didn't know what to do, so he locked the bird in a closet
at the back of the house. 

Well, Mrs. Larson didn't know this had happened and she let the
bird out the next afternoon when the church Dorcas Society was
quilting in her front room. It was a repeat performance, and  the
ladies nearly fainted! 
 
Now Lars is pretty unperturbable,but he totally lost it when he
got home and heard about the parrot's latest transgression.
He grabbed the bird and threw him  into the freezer. For the first
few seconds, there's a terrible din. The bird kicks and claws and
thrashes around. Then it suddenly gets VERY quiet. So Lars
thinks the bird may be hurt, and after a couple minutes of silence
he opens up the freezer door. The bird calmly climbed onto Lars's
arm and said, "Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you, parson.
I'll do my best to clean up my vocabulary from now on!" 

Well, you could have knocked Lars over with a feather. He couldn't
understand the transformation that miraculously had come over
the parrot. Then the parrot said,
"By the way -- what did the chicken do?"