IT WAS A perfectly ordinary afternoon when a peach-faced lovebird snuck up behind me and landed on my head, causing me to shriek and flap my arms in a pitiable attempt to flee his blindside assault. It's been a few weeks and some change since this avian Cortez planted his feathered flag in my skull with the idea of conquering a nation. My nation. Me.

Chicken the regal lovebird conquered owner Melisande Luna with avian aplomb.

The first basic human right this seed-flinger denied me was mornings in bed. Instead of pale birdsong lulling me awake, I am roused with wolf whistles and come-here calls. Reveille. His Highness rises with the sun and all subjects must attend dawn ceremonies.

A few other rights and dignities have trickled away, most of which seem intuitive in hindsight: private showers are history, dookie-free floors are a dim memory, and my typing privileges have been revoked from daybreak to dusk lest the hunt and peck of my fingers ruffle the Duke of Down, member of the sacred order of the Knights of Nip.

Essentially, I have a highly intelligent, psychologically complex, codependent Chicken Charlamagne micromanaging me 12 hours a day, every day. It's hard to please this beaky bourgeois, but I'm learning.

For maximum contentedness he must spend at least 90 percent of his day standing or walking on me, it doesn't matter where: my knee, my posterior, my forehead. All body parts comprise the throne of the Emperial Eggsitter, particularly sensitive areas.

I have quit trying to converse with him in English when uninvited to do so. I've learned that the easiest way to help him find his tongue is to ignore His Chickeness for a period greater than one nanosecond but not less than a millisecond. This slight against the Royal Raptor garners a swift reaction from on high:

"Chick-en!"

This is uttered with dulcet seduction, a Machiavellian ploy to elicit the desired response.

"Chicken! Pretty Bird! Smart Bird! I love Chicken!"

At which point, having properly worshipped his brilliance and virtue, my audience is over and I am free to carry on with my mundane tasks.

A telephone call may also serve as catalyst to arouse the molting monarch's monologes. The moment another voice mutters into my ear from afar I am granted face time with the Poultry Prince who, amused by the peons attempting communication, lends me, his favored peasant, a soliloquy en fortissimos:

"Chick-en! Pretty Bird! Chick-en! Come 'ere! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!

Chick-en!

And then, having said his piece, he rips the wire out of the wall.

I was a sovereign nation until the King decided to move his court here.

I am a conquered people.

I am slave to a diminutive green dictator with a blue butt.

I wonder how he would taste with noodles.