Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Thankfulness

A young man named John received a parrot as an early Christmas gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird's mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity.

John tried and tried to change the bird's attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to 'clean up' the bird's vocabulary. Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even ruder. John, in desperation, threw up his hands, grabbed the bird and shoved him in the freezer.

For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute.

Fearing that he'd hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer. The parrot calmly stepped out onto John's outstretched arms and said, "I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I'm sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior."

John was stunned at the change in the bird's attitude. As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird continued............”May I enquire as to what the turkey did?”

Before any of you start wondering if a similar tactic will work on your children, I want to remind you that we all have so much to be thankful for. I hope you have a blessed Thanksgiving!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why is he named John?

Great story I blogged it -- we appropriate credit of course. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving.

Jim Lange said...

You are right...I should have had him named Glenn!

I hope you all are well!

Anonymous said...

Jim was the obvious choice-- we're doing great enjoying life and Nancy has decorated the church for Christmas so beautifully that it almost feels like Crossroads