Depending on how you look at it, there’s something either very wrong or very right with my family.
Mom: Maybe he was a jailbird that flew the coop!
Poppop: What’s he in for, robin a bank?
Mom: I think he’s too chicken for that. Probably jaywalking.
Poppop: Then put him in the game. He’s pigeon today.
Mom: Let’s not start this again, we’re sure to egret it.
Poppop: Yes, plus it’s almost flew season.
Mom: That’s definitely a fowl.
Poppop: I was just winging it.
Mom: Wren it this going to stop?
Mom: Now you’re just parroting Patti Flagler.
Poppop: I’m chicken to stop it.
Poppop: Just being cagey about it.
Mom: I’m not swallowing that!
Poppop: Then continue to flounder.
Mom: C’mon, that was a cheep shot!
Poppop: It was on the breakfast special board at Owl’s Restaurant.
Mom: That was a HOOT!
Poppop: Most good yokes are a hoot.
Mom: Yeah, I was cracking up.
Poppop: Eggzactly!
Mom: I dyed laughing!
Me: The two of you form a singularity of simplemindedness. Buncha loons.
Me: I mean, totally cuckoo.
Mom: Stop clucking.
Me: Save the hen-pecking for the husband.
Mom: You’re going off half cocked.
Me: I didn’t see that. What a dodo I am.
Mom: A real birdbrain.
Me: Well, birds of a feather, they say.
Me: You’re just mad I left the nest, despite my having developed many of the cardinal virtues.
Me: What’s the problem? Not getting the yolk?
Mom: Toucan play at this game.
Me: It’s probably easier for me—it is my stork and trade, after all.
Mom: Stork won’t fly.
Me: Don’t tell me what I pelican or can’t say. You’ve got a lot of gull.
Me: But I know you’re just falcon around.
Mom: Good one. Can I use that with Poppop?
Me: I’m trying to figure out a way to turn archaeopteryx into a pun.
Mom: that would be coo.
Me: Success, of course, would be I’d be immediately ostrichsized.
Me: In one fell swoop, of course.
Mom: this makes my cranium ache.
Me: I know, it’s sparrowing.
Me: But it’s something to crow about, for sure.
Mom: I think it’s easier for dudes than for chicks.
Me: Silly goose.
Mom: Sean’s in the minors and has a short season.
Me: Do they keep a caged canary on the field to warn them of gas leaks?
Mom: I don’t get that one.
Me: Minors
Me: Miners
Me: Sorry, I was being loony
Mom: Don’t start
Me: Beats being henpecked, I guess.
Me: But really, having a kid just means that eventually, you’ll have an empty nest.
Me: So, to me, people who have kids are out of their falcon minds.
Poppop: But mostly, they are gullible.
Me: Well, it was work chicken into.
Poppop: Only if you’re pigeon for the Mets.
Me: I used to be a finch-hitter, you know.
Me: I would hit fly balls. Then the fans would tar and feather me.
Poppop: How many at bats did you have?
Me: A lot, but everything I hit was fowl.
Poppop: I remember that. It was against the Cardinals I believe. Paul Byrd was pitching.
Me: I mean, all things being eagle, that was pretty hard to swallow.
