Saturday, March 29, 2014

I Could Have Been Eaten By A Wolf

If you haven’t noticed by now, weird stuff happens to me. My friends call me a bug light for strange men and strange experiences just follow me. In fact I was telling my friend the other day that I was going to conquer my fear of riding the train and just do it. Her reply? “No way Eden. Knowing you, you would miss your stop, ride all the way to Canada, somehow be the only person to just walk past customs, and then be in a foreign country without a passport and we would have to extradite you out, because weird shit happens to you. Don’t do it.”

I have no argument to that one. None. As I was writing in my other post about how the Rottweiler got right in my friends face at 2:30am and nearly scared us to death, I started thinking about how some of my strangest life experiences have been with animals.

For example, the summer following my husband leaving I worked as a nanny. I had my kids plus the two I was watching, which meant I had four kids, ages 3, 1, 10 months and 8 months. I watched the children at my client’s house in the middle of a very suburban neighborhood. One day at roughly 3pm I had all the kids on the driveway where I was blowing bubbles for them, when all of a sudden out of nowhere this giant buck with its giant buck antlers came running up the driveway, reared up on its back legs, and I swear it started doing crazy ninja moves. It was literally punching the air with its front legs about two feet from my face. Do you know how tall those things are on their back legs? Huge. They are huge. That’s all you need to know. They are huge.

I laughed so hard when I saw this picture. In my case it was a buck that was SIGNIFICANTLY larger than me, antlers and all, but it was pretty much punching exactly like that!

Imagine this punching you. What. The. Hell.

So I have a three year old, three babies, and a giant punching ninja deer on the driveway. What do you do in that situation? You do nothing. It happens so fast that you just stand there with your jaw on the ground while your brain is trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Then just as soon as the buck had appeared it was off, running down the street to scare the shit out of someone else. That was immediately followed by me screaming “AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! GET IN THE HOUSE, while grabbing any limb attached to a child that I can get a hold of as I start flinging children towards the garage door. Fun times.

Seriously, what does someone do in a crazy situation like that? I’ve never been one for survival training. You need me to hustle for cash on the street, I’m your girl. You need me to talk our way into a free hotel room for the evening? Give me a call. You want me to charm a restaurant into feeding us for free, I’m all over it. Drop me somewhere without a microwave and we will all starve to death. Forget foraging for food, I can barely handle a buffet. No electricity? Hell no. Throw in a crazy animal and you might as well just kill me.

I’ve never been very good at reacting quickly when my life is threatened by an animal. When I was in high school and living in another very suburban neighborhood, I got off the school bus one day and as usual started walking through my neighbor’s yard to get to my house. As I rounded the corner of their house I noticed a really big dog. I remember thinking “Hum. When did they get a husky?” The husky was sniffing their little poodle and I was sort of just looking at them as I kept walking. Then I noticed another husky. “Hum. That’s weird, they got two huskies? They don’t seem like big dog people.” The huskies start walking towards me and I stopped to look at them. “Hum. They are pretty big. Wow, they are really big. Their heads are huge! Why aren’t they on leashes? Why are they so big? Why do they have so much hair on their faces?”

By now they are standing directly in front of me to where I could pet them without moving my feet. I'm having my very own "Little Red Riding Hood" moment, "Wow grandmother, what large teeth you have" as I'm thinking “hum, their hair looks very familiar, they look like those Native American paintings of wolves. OH MY GOSH THESE ARE WOLVES.”



Panic. Panic sets in. “RUN!!! No, don’t run, make yourself look bigger!! No. That’s what you do if you see a bear. RUN!!! No. They will chase you. Stand your ground. No! Don’t look them in the eye; they will take that as a challenge. RUUUUNNNNN!!!!”

Now in all reality these wolves seemed about as harmless as a caterpillar. They were literally just standing there looking at me like "Dude, check out that crazy chick. She sure does breathe fast," but still. Wolves. Two of them. Enough said.

I go running around the side of the house where I literally run right into some guy from animal control who yells “WHERE ARE THE WOLVES!!??” He has a broom. What the hell are you going to do with that buddy? Sweep them out of town?

I ran home and told my family what had happened and no one believed me. Later that evening we were sitting on the couch watching the news and a segment came on talking about “the wolves spotted all over town today.” I didn’t say anything but I looked at them and they all looked at the floor.

Do you all know what an egret is? It’s a giant bird with super long legs and a really large wingspan. I was walking to the bus one day through the same exact yard where I encountered the wolves when I heard something rustling in the tree. I looked up just in time for this ginormous bird FALL out of the tree and land about two inches in front of me. Naturally, I screamed. Surprisingly, the bird screamed back. I bolted in one direction and the bird in another.



What. The. Hell.

I could go on and on about the time that I stepped on a crab and it pinched the hell out of my foot. I could also talk about the time a bird got in the house and every time I got close to catching it I would freak out and run out of the room screaming. Or I could tell you about the time I saw an old blind dog outside and my tender heart let him in my house and it took two animal control guys three hours and a tranquilizer gun to get him out.  I could go on and on but I have to go pick up my kids now so that’s all you get for today.

Cheers!


Photo Credits

20 comments:

  1. Oh, my! I thought I was the only one with a life like that (though my weird shit is generally about people).

    If you do decide to conquer your fear of riding the train and end up in Canada, go to a Tim Horton's with your laptop, post about it, and stay there. I'll pick you up and drive you back to the border. That would probably be about right for my life too... (grin)

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    1. ... and I'll show you the local wildlife along the way. We'll probably have a moose running down the road at about 20 miles per hour ahead of our car, or a Canada goose will mistake my Yaris for another goose and try to attack it. (Have had both happen, and more...)

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    2. Ha, heck, if I ever come to Canada I have a few thousand things I'd like to return, I'm bringing your geese back. Clearly they are all immigrating to America and I can't say that I'm all that thrilled about it.

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    3. The Moose would freak the hell out of me. We have them here too, but I've never seen one running down the side of the road!

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  2. I love love love you and your weird ass stories!! This had me in stitches. I remember this one time when I was much younger and went over to a friend's house. This family was known for having the biggest, scariest most vicious dog on the block. His name was Whitey and they ALWAYS had to lock him up when people came over. Anyway my friend invited me over after school but neglected to lock up the demon dog. So I walk into the yard and befor I can knock on the door I see HIM. Luckily the dog had apparantly just woken up from a nap. While a screamed bloody murder Whitey let out a bored, half assed bark and yawned. I honestly dont even know how I got out of that yard. I just remember seeing white and slamming the gate behind me. While I having heart failure outside the dog just looked at me like "the hell's your problem?". Eventually my "friend" came out of the house apologising, but I know she didnt lock him up on purpose. She was of THOSE girls. Anyway, I love it when people share similar stories and we can all just laugh at ourselves.

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    1. I am a weird ass person. The weird stories come with the territory!! I'm glad you enjoy them though :)

      Dogs freak me out because of exactly that!! I once walked into my boyfriends house, WITH him, and his dalmation came running down the stairs full speed and full on bit me in the leg. Now when I see a dog running towards me I practically climb a tree. Too funny about Whitey!

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  3. You and your crazy animal experiences...

    Funny stuff.

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  4. If it's a prey animal threatening you...RUN. If it's a predator animal threatening you....You're screwed. Generally, trying to act bigger and meaner than you are is a good tactic, unless it's a pissed off momma bear, in which case there's really nothing you can do but hope you don't die. :D

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    1. Ha! Thats a lot to remember during a time of sheer panic!

      Or....I could just start carrying tranquelizer darts around with me. ? Yes? No?

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  5. I'm not from the U.S so I just learned about this show. It's old, but you might wanna show it to your kids. Seems to go along very well with the kind words you say to them every night.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-eA_HxeCfI

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    1. Aw cute, thanks for sharing!! That show is from when I was little!

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  6. I worked a summer in Yellowstone. People are stupid. Big animals are scary. Very wow. Much hide. Stories later.

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  7. Wow. You have some odd luck with animals.

    I don't have any bizarre animal stories. I'm really allergic to mosquitoes. As in, I get a hive/welt within seconds of being bit and if I'm bit more than three or four times at once, then I start getting dizzy/woozy/tired. If I decide to be an idiot and not go inside and instead invite more mosquitoes to bit me, I get nauseous.

    Once while hiking with friends, I realized the hike was going to dip down by a stream and I'd (I am an idiot sometimes) forgotten the bug spray. After listening to them beg and plead for me to come down to the stream with them for nearly 15 minutes, I finally did. They didn't believe me when I told them just how allergic I am to the darn bugs.

    Ten minutes later, my friend is trying to drag me back up the hill in full panic mode (keep in mind I was fully capable of dragging myself up the hill) because I'm covered in hives. She was practically crying. "I thought you were just joking! I had no idea it was this bad! And you're the only one who got bit and you've got at least 10 bites! Mosquitoes just love you! I'm so sorry!"

    Good times!

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    1. Haha!! That is too funny. I'd pay to have seen your friends face!

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  8. What a crazy adventure, and they totally dismissed you.
    Sucks to be them!

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    1. Ha, right!? It was so funny how they ALL looked at the floor to avoid making eye contact with me. It was like looking at a bunch of dogs who knew they were in trouble

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    2. Make them feel the guilt!

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