A Bird In Hand is Worth Two in the Bush

‘A bird in hand is worth two in the bush’, said the BLAH instructor, bringing up the picture of two birds cuddling up on a branch.

‘Why?’ wondered Rusty, pressing into use the microcircuits in his brain that were programmed to wonder. ‘That’s not exactly a bush. Would this apply to two birds that are in a tree and not in a bush?’ ‘What if there were three birds, instead of two?’ ‘Do the birds need to belong to any particular species for this to be true?’ It only took him a nano-second to come up with these questions and he stuck his hand up in the air to put them to his instructor. But, the bell rang just then and the instructor walked out leaving young Rusty without answers.

Rusty scanned the picture of the two birds and put it through an internet search. An instant later, he’d discovered that they were ‘turtle doves’. ‘But turtles belong in the sea’, mused Rusty. ‘Could it be that these birds can swim in the sea, like turtles? Perhaps the instructor really meant to say that a bird in hand was worth two in the sea!’

Rusty wasn’t entirely sure that his thoughts were flowing right, but then he rarely ever was sure of anything these days. In fact, this state of confusion seemed to have become a common affliction with most robots and people were blaming it on the BLAH course that they were being put through. This may be as opportune a moment as any to reveal that BLAH stood for Basic Language and Humanities. The course was designed to make robots understand the intricate nuances of the human language and empathize with humans. But people were complaining that the course was muddling with the robots, resulting in a phenomenon called the Paranoid Android Syndrome.

As he was programmed to do when confused, Rusty turned to his mentor Vicky. Vicky had taken an advanced course in Humanities and was now regularly seeing a psychiatrist. But all she could tell him this time was that when in doubt she turned to ‘Wise Man’ for help. ‘And where would I find Wise Man?’ asked Rusty. ‘Dr. Jones found him for me’, Vicky replied. ‘The doctor says that Wise Man comes from a land far away and that you’d need to cross the ocean to find one like him.’ What she didn’t tell him (because, of course, he hadn’t asked) was that ‘Wise Man’ was the therapy turtle that her psychiatrist had given her ‘to soothe her jumpy circuits’. And it was really a good thing that she didn’t because Rusty, as you may recall, was already quite confused about turtles and this may have left him all at sea.

Rusty wasn’t doing much that weekend. So he hired a boat and set off across the ocean to find the Wise Man.? Now, Rusty was good at a lot of things, but rowing wasn’t one of them. So, instead of going across the ocean, Rusty paddled along the coast and reached the other side. This side was craggy and mountainous and not widely inhabited. Rusty found a man selling coconuts on the beach and checked with him if he had heard of a Wise Man in those parts.

‘Do you mean old Wiseman who lives on the cliff?’ asked the man. Rusty replied that he wasn’t sure, but that he wasn’t really ever sure of anything and therefore that his opinion shouldn’t really count. The coconut vendor nodded in an understanding sort of way and said that there really was only one Wiseman in those parts and directed Rusty to his house. Rusty being a polite kind of robot thanked the man for his help and also insisted on buying a few coconuts to pay him for his troubles.

Now it happened that the Wiseman in question was an out-of-job actor who was waiting for his big break. It also happened that on that particular day, Wiseman’s agent had called to tell him that she was sending a casting director’s assistant to meet him for the role of a rich Arab Sheikh. Being a self-proclaimed method actor, Wiseman had dug up a moth-eaten Arab costume from his trunk and had just put it on in an attempt to get into character when Rusty knocked at his door.

Wiseman answered the door and was disappointed to find a robot standing there. Rusty politely enquired, ‘are you the Wise Man?’ Wiseman replied that he was indeed ‘the’ Wiseman. In his turn, Wiseman asked Rusty what had brought him there. Rusty replied that Vicky had sent him to find the Wise Man and that’s why he was there.

In a remarkable coincidence, Wiseman’s agent was also called Vicky and so he gladly invited Rusty in.

‘Well’, asked Wiseman after Rusty had settled in, ‘do you have the script?’ Rusty replied that he did not and that Vicky had not told him anything about a script but that he was there to find if the Wise Man could tell him why a bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

Coincidentally, again, "A Bird in Hand is Worth Two in the Bush", was the name of a movie that Wiseman had had a two-bit role in. And, in continuation of this series of remarkable coincidences, that role had also been that of an Arab. So it was but natural for Wiseman to think that here was an android that had done its homework really well. He also thought that the makers of the movie were desperate to cast him. This made him puff up a bit with self importance. ‘Well’, he said, ‘it is inexcusable that you do not have a script. I will, however, overlook it if the payment is good and not the peanuts I had been paid for my role in "A Bird in Hand is Worth Two in the Bush".’

Rusty assured Wiseman that he’d be paid much more than peanuts. ‘How much?’ Wiseman persisted. So, Rusty invited Wiseman to follow him to have a look. Outside, Rusty walked to the edge of the cliff and pointed down to the beach. Wiseman, still in his Lawrence-of-Arabia getup, crept gingerly to the edge and peered down. Moored on the beach, below, was a boat filled with coconuts. Wiseman turned to Rusty and asked, his voice quivering with indignation, ‘what is the meaning of this?’ Rusty replied, ‘Would you accept payment in coconuts? They are certainly bigger than peanuts.’

Evening was setting in and the coconut vendor was ready to call it a day. He loaded the unsold coconuts on a bicycle and was wheeling it away when he noticed a lonely figure sitting on the branch of a dead tree, staring out into the ocean. ‘Well, well, if it isn’t our metallic friend who bought all those coconuts this afternoon!’ He waved at Rusty and walked towards him. ‘So, did you meet Wiseman?’ Rusty nodded and narrated the events of the day. ‘And all I wanted to know was the meaning of a bird in hand is worth two in the bush!’ he said, sounding as dejected as a robot possibly could.

The coconut vendor stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘You offered him all the coconuts you had in your boat, you say?’ Rusty nodded. ‘And he rejected the offer?’ Rusty nodded, again.

‘Well’, said the vendor, ‘there you are. Wiseman had the opportunity to get the coconuts. That’s the bird in his hand. But he refused to take it thinking he could do much better than that, like being signed up for a movie or something. That’s the two birds in the bush. So, he let go something he had in his hand for something that he may not even get! That’s what they mean by a bird in hand is worth two in the bush!’

Rusty sat up. ‘So’, he asked slowly, ‘it does not have anything to do with birds?’ ‘The vendor shook his head. ‘Or with turtles….or the sea?’ Rusty persisted. ‘Nothing at all’, the vendor confirmed.

‘So, humans don’t always mean what they say?’

‘Or even say what they mean!’ agreed the vendor. ‘So long, then, my friend! Just remember, when it comes to people like Wiseman, never judge them by their name much as you wouldn’t judge a book by its cover.’

‘Hmm…’ mused Rusty as he walked back to his boat, ‘I wonder what that meant!’ But that, my friends, is another adventure for another day.