I’m posting this really early because I won’t have time before work, and since tomorrow will only be my 5th day at my new job, I don’t think I should be taking time first thing Monday morning to post to the Dope. So it’s the Sunday Evening Edition.
Anyway as many of you know, I just moved to Minnesota from Upstate NY. If you missed it, there’s a story about how the cat did with the move somewhere in last week’s MMP, but I’m too lazy to link to it. I think it was about on page 3 if you’re curious. But overall, the move went well, even for the cat. It was after we got here that the fun began.
As I’d heard, there are lakes and walking/biking/rollerblading trails everywhere here. So one of the first nights here, Mom and I found a really nice path pretty close to my new apartment. “Great!” thinks I. “I will go rollerblading here tomorrow morning.” And so I did. It was very peaceful first thing in the morning when everyone else was headed out to work. (This was the week before my job started.) There were ducks, egrets, and herons on the pond. It was nice and cool, and with far fewer hills than in NY, blading felt great.
It was then that I saw her. A young doe standing by herself in the field. I looked at her. She looked at me. I looked at her. She looked at me. And then for a reason only a deer would understand, she decided to flick her little white tail… and run TOWARDS me.
That’s right folks. On my third day in Minnesota, I came this -----> <------- close to hitting a deer. Not in my car, but while on rollerblades. On which I’m not terribly good at stopping. Yup, it would have been fun trying to explain to my new boss why I couldn’t start work. “Um, so here’s the thing… I kinda hit a deer… No, no, not in my car. I was on rollerblades… No, I’m not making this up!”
So that was incident number 1. Incident number 2 was the next moring. (After 2 mornings and two incidents, I decided the peaceful early morning jaunts just weren’t worth it.)
I was blading along merrily, minding my own business, when I came up over a gentle knoll. As I crested the little hill, I saw a whole family of geese in the path, right in front of me… as I was picking up speed going down the hill. Have I mentioned that I can’t stop?
With much flailing of arms and screeching of wheels, I did manage to come to a halt, but not before thoroughly pissing off the whole family of geese. I spoke gently and quietly to them, hoping they’d just move out of my way. Which they did. Mama rounded up the babies and headed off into the grass and Papa brought up the rear. (At least I think… Mama and Papa look an awful lot alike to me.) I waited until I thought they were sufficiently off the path before starting to move by them. But apparently Papa didn’t think I’d waited long enough.
He started hissing at me. So I started to go by a little faster to get out of his way. But in trying to pick up speed, I had to move my arms a bit. Just for reference, this seems to be a threatening gesture to a goose. So Papa goose decided that I was a Serious Threat and that he needed to take drastic action. He started to charge. Beak open, hissing, running at me. And as he got closer, he spread his wings to look even more threatening.
Well, I certainly felt threatened enough. The adrenelin was pumping, and my feet were moving, but like in a cartoon, no matter how much I moved my feet, my body just wasn’t going. And Papa goose was coming at me.
Fortunately, I have not encountered pissed off geese before, but my father has, so I know what a goose bite can look like. (That’s a whole 'nother story for another night.) Hint: they are not pleasant. I did not want to gain first-hand knowledge of what an angry goose can do.
Somehow, miraculously, my body finally did catch up to my feet, and I eluded the enraged papa goose. And saw an oriole, but even that wasn’t enough to make me want to tempt the fates again by going for another morning rollerblade. Now I go in the afternoon with everyone else. There’s safety in numbers, kids. Remember that.
And have both a good Sunday Night and Monday Morning.
) and crashed.