LOST PARROTBELOVED PET: MsChin and Mr Foo showing an image of August on the computer screen. TNP PICTURE: KELVIN CHNG
The Electric New Paper :
IN A FLAP OVER LOST PARROT
Choa Chu Kang woman
# Spends $1,000 to print 70,000 fliers and hire 3 full-time distributors
# Offers $1,000 reward
By Benson Ang
28 August 2009
HER neighbours call her 'Auntie Parrot'.
They often saw her sunbathing her parrot on a grass patch next to her flat at Block 510, Choa Chu Kang Street 51, and taking it for walks in the neighbourhood.
After the parrot, named August, went missing at the end of last month, Ms Alice Chin, 40, has not spared money, effort or time to try to get it back.
The business development manager spent more than $1,000 to print and distribute 70,000 fliers throughout her neighbourhood.
She showed us receipts for the printing costs and said three people are working for her full time, slotting the fliers into letter boxes throughout the whole of Choa Chu Kang and Yew Tee.
Reasonable
'I think the cost is reasonable. I just want my bird to come back,' she said.
About 40,000 fliers were distributed last Wednesday, and another 30,000 fliers will be distributed to the same flats today.
'Hopefully, when the people see the same flier the second time, they will be touched that we love August so much and return it to us,' said Ms Chin.
Besides hiring the full-time distributors, she and her husband, Mr Lawrence Foo, 49, a laboratory technician, pasted fliers everywhere, including shops and free notice boards, and asked the security guards of nearby condominiums to help paste the fliers for them.
They also placed advertisements offering a $1,000 reward on several websites and sent an e-mail to Stomp last Saturday.
All for a bird that cost $850 three years ago.
The reason for their obsession?
August helped them get through the saddest moments of their lives.
One of Ms Chin's immediate family members died each year for four years - her nephew in 2003, her father-in-law in 2004, her mother in 2005 and her father in 2006.
The couple bought August in November 2007 to distract them from their pain, and it lifted their spirits through its 'silly and stupid antics'.
'That's why the love and bond with August is so different from that with a normal pet,' said Ms Chin.
August is a 3-year-old male African grey parrot. Its coat is largely grey, except for a bright red tail. It has a black beak and an identification number tagged to one of its legs.
Ask her about her pet, and Ms Chin waxes lyrical, describing it as 'very smart' and 'intelligent'.
August is also more than just a pet to the couple, who are childless. Ms Chin said that when talking to August, she addresses herself as 'Mummy' and her husband as 'Papa'.
'It is just like a kid to us. It's very special.'
August is free to walk around the house, has a blanket to snuggle under at night and likes to go 'shopping', that is, going around the neighbourhood perched on Ms Chin's forearm.
It likes unsalted cashew nuts and millet seeds, but Ms Chin admits that it is 'overweight'.
How does she know? She weighed it with a special weighing machine she bought in 2007. It weighs 485g, compared to the breed's average of 350g.
The one thing she regrets is making August 'feel unwanted' on the night it disappeared, at about 10pm.
She had just returned from a two-week business trip to Canada and was suffering from jet lag. When August tried to perch itself on her thigh, she shooed it away.
'He walked underneath the sofa set and, all of a sudden, just flew out the window.
'I was so stunned. Why did my bird fly away?'
Armed with torches, the couple tried searching for August in a country club opposite their flat until 3am.
The nights that followed were mostly sleepless ones as they continued looking for the bird after work.
They have 10 other birds - finches and a mynah.
The only other time August went missing was in 2007, when it flew out a window after it was scared by the sound of a vacuum cleaner. It was found seven days later.
Ms Chin hopes August will return to her once again, although the calls she has received so far were fruitless.
She gets upset when she receives prank calls claiming August is dead or when neighbours ignore her fliers.
She had a tip-off yesterday that a parrot was found, but it turned out to be a different one.
'I have no commercial agenda. I just want to find my pet which is lost and doesn't know how to come home by itself.
'I know that it sounds very dramatic, but it's real.'
