It looked to me like your typical designer stationery for people who like their letters decorated with kittens or rottweilers. Or maybe it was stationery for pets who enjoyed corresponding with other pets. ("Hi, it's Fluffy! Anne is helping me write this, but I was wondering if Buster could meet me at the dog park this Saturday! That is, if Buster got that procedure done last week, if you know what I mean. Wink, wink. P.S. Hope he's feeling better!") Then again, most pets probably use e-mail these days.

It turned out it was neither. Each page of the little notepad was entitled, "Notes for the Petsitter."

I burst out laughing so hard the bird biscuit I had been sampling almost came out my nose, causing everyone to stare. Oh, right. Like a bird owner could leave sitting instructions on a piece of paper the size of two squares of toilet paper. The phone numbers wouldn't even fit.

I mean really, let's start with the phone numbers of where I could be reached in case of emergency. There is my cell phone number, the hotel's phone number, the second hotel's number, and the cell phone numbers of any friends I might be traveling with (in case I don't answer my phone).

Then there's contact information for the vet in case one of the birds gets sick. I like to provide not only name and phone number but a color-coded Mapquest printout of the address. And let's not forget the backup vet. In case the regular vet is hit by a greyhound, I also provide the name, phone number and Mapquested location of a second qualified avian veterinarian.

But you can't be too careful. Should the backup vet also get knocked out of commission by, say, a kick in the head from somebody's pet ostrich (hey, it could happen), I provide a backup backup vet, this one, unfortunately, an hour's drive away. (Hey, I live in a small town.) In my instructions I provide a breakout of how much extra I will pay the sitter for the drive time.

Then there are the backup sitters. In case my regular sitter is incapacitated - say she walks out of the house the first morning and gets hit by a meteorite - I arrange for a pinch sitter. (Pinch sitter, ha! Get it?) I provide both sitters with information about the other.

In the meantime, I pay the backup sitter a little something to swing by the house every evening. This serves a three-fold purpose: my birds don't get as lonely with two people looking in on them, the second sitter can feed them if the first sitter forgets, and she can hit the ground running should the first sitter collide with aforementioned meteorite.

In the terrible event something happens to both sitters, I ask a third person to drop by the house a couple of times a week, around noon. This ensures he won't accidentally bump into either first or second sitter and absolutely ensures my birds won't starve. Unless, of course, something happens to him, too. What are the odds? Just in case, I give my cousin a key. All four people, of course, need a full set of instructions in case they become the primary sitter.

Back to those instructions. I write down where in the house to find the bird first-aid kit, complete with inventory and directions for each item. Should a bird actually need to go to the vet, I also describe where in the house to find the travel carrier.

I have this cool idea, a wise security precaution, really, along the lines of backup sitters and backup veterinarians. Some day I plan to devise a code for the travel carrier's location so a thief can't find it and use it to steal my birds. For instance, each letter in the location could also be the first letter in the name of a type of bird. Only the sitter will know what it means. Say the carrier is in the CLOSET, so I will leave in my instructions: "First letter is small gray Australian bird with crest. Second letter is long-tailed rainbow-colored bird from Indonesia with loose droppings". (Answers: cockatiel and lorikeet, C-L, and so on.) A brilliant piece of bird sitter instruction, don't you think?

Then there's the identification of each bird, also very important for optimum care. Two of the birds are easily identified by their colors, but the two grey cockatiels look so much alike no one can tell them apart except me. Differentiating between them requires a lot of descriptives such as "softer feathers" and "crooked beak you can only see by moving the feathers around the beak" and "friendly" and "not friendly."

Food is next. My birds have recently gone on food strike, deciding they hate the foods they previously loved. I have bought every brand of pellet and bird food known to the human race and I'm running out of room in my house for my own food. The birds love each new food, the first time. After that they turn up their beaks and demand something else, preferably spicy Nutriberries unless they've decided they don't like Nutriberries anymore and must have gourmet carmel-covered popcorn.

So the instructions must detail which pellets each bird is likely to eat today and which ones tomorrow and which ones the third day. Plus the type and location of vegetables and fruits and treats. ("All perishable bird foods are located on upper right shelf of refrigerator, except for mixed frozen vegetables, a cup of which must be thawed every day and evenly distributed among the bowls. Nuts and rice on kitchen counter next to coffee maker. I made enough rice to last all week but if you run out, please cover two cups with water and cook 45 minutes. Do not drain. The birds like it to be slightly sticky.")

What goes in must come out, so next I describe each bird's normal poop. ("Sugar Franklin's tend to be a bit more watery than the other cockatiels. Charli likes to poop in one place. All poop will likely be purple should there be blueberries involved. If you see any variations, please give call me. See telephone numbers provided above.")

Behavior and rules of the house come next and warrant an entire page. "Please do not allow any bird to chew my couch, tables, chairs, computer, books, lamps, clothes, or electrical cords," I write. Temper tantrums will ensue, but the bird sitter must be strong. Since none of my birds like any of the others, the bird sitter also must be vigilant to murderous intentions. So I include tips on locations in which to place different birds in various rooms that are most likely to lead to harmony.

Then there's entertainment. Charli likes this kind of toy, Sugar won't touch that one, Flash and Nicholas demand yet a third type. I list two or three substitute toys for each bird. Just in case. The birds must have the television on and their cages arranged in such a way as to afford the best view. The volume must not be too loud or too soft; on weekends they like to watch PBS and during the week they prefer game shows.

Petting warrants a detailed section. The sitter must pet Charli's feathers a certain way while Sugar prefers another. Flash wants nothing to do with fingers, while Nicholas blisses out at the slightest scritch. If they're molting (which occurs 99 percent of the time) I must explain how each bird expresses its crankiness and ways to circumvent.

Baths? That would be nice, but I think that would be asking too much.

If I remember, I finish up with the location of the fire extinguisher and main water cutoff, trash take-out days and where to stack the mail. I ask the sitter to raise the shades in the morning so the birds can look out the window, and lower the shades again at night so they're not bothered by headlights.

All told, so far we're looking at, oh, maybe 16 single-spaced pages. Front and back. And they want me to fit this on a sheet of paper the size of an overgrown Post-it? I need more! More space and more authority to leave as many details on the care of my birds as I see fit.

Maybe paper just isn't my medium. Maybe I should leave a videotape. I could sit in a leather armchair while stroking a white Persian and laugh maniacally about birdie bread while threatening global domination if the sitter doesn't change the papers correctly. Or maybe I should leave a self-destructing audiotape with the sitter's "mission." Then again, checking in by speakerphone every day would be warmer and fuzzier. The sitter could wear a white jumpsuit and call herself "Margie's Angel".

Or maybe I should just save a few trees and writer's cramp and bad satire and stay at home.

Humor writer Marguerite Floyd is a hospital documentation manager but her real job is slave to two cockatiels and a brown-headed parrot.