Of geese and co-workers.

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m sure if my co-worker was a member here she’d be here flaming my bitchy ass. But she’s not-- so screw that.

It all started with that plane that turned into a Jet-ski over here in God’s Country (otherwise known as NYC). It has been reported that the accident was caused by a flock of geese that were sucked into the engines. Now, I don’t know how it is were you are but over here we have a geese problem. Those fuckers never fly south. They are aggressive crap factories that enjoy befouling lawns and attacking heads. In the spring everyone at work runs into the building covering their faces and dodging feces. And now they stand accused of trying to kill over 150 people. Here is Animal Loving Co-worker’s take on yesterday’s near tragedy:

Animal Loving Co-worker: Oh, those poor, poor geese!
Everybody else: Huh?
Animal Loving Co-worker: To be sucked into an engine and killed! How horrible!
Me: If it were up to me, I’d start up an airplane and toss a few geese into the engines before the plane takes off-- on GP.
ALC: That’s TERRIBLE! How can you say that?
Me: Would it make you feel better if we wring their necks, pluck their feathers and put them on a grill?
ALC: They were just being birds! It wasn’t their fault.
Me: They can be birds in my belly. That way they don’t take down planes filled with people.
ALC: I can’t believe how cruel you’re being.
Me: Only a little crueler than you when you tear into your KFC.
ALC * breaks into full blown sobs*.
No, Animal Loving Co-worker is not a vegitarian and yes, I hate fucking geese. I didn’t think I could hate a bird more than I hate pigeons but working out here on the island has shown me how wrong I can be. Never thought my disllike of the foul beasts would bring a full grown woman to tears, though.

2

The thing that gets me is a couple of years I found out that the Romans used to keep geese as guard animals.

My only question has been how do you keep the addled beasts from attacking everyone?

3

Some people follow perfectly logical arguments to perfectly insane conclusions. Suffering by any species is at least regrettable, but in The Great Scheme of Things the suffering of an “air kitten” being sucked into pate is fairly minor.

Nobody tried to make the beast suffer. It was an accident.

4

Geese are honking godless killing machines. Canada Geese moreso.

5

The idea is they make a racket if someone breaks in. Some battle or another turned on this, the sentries were woken by the guard geese.

(In the UK we used to put geese on top of the ammo bunkers as a last line of defense. We tried that in Panama. The locals just ate them.)

6

Hissing. Not honking. They honk while they’re waaaay over there. They hiss when they attack.

Paul, thanks for that information. I always figured the mean bastards were attacking - biting and buffeting.
ETA: What bothers me is that everyone’s so pissed off about geese locally, but you can’t go hunting them with improvised bolas.

7

Wow. It’s like that old Far Side:

“Details are sketchy, but it appears the name of the bird sucked into the plane’s engines was Harold Beeker.”

Of course, in the cartoon it was a bird giving the news report, so the avian-centric perspective made sense.

8

Me too.

That’s why I only fuck hamsters.

9

I hate those filthy, mean crap factories. Passionately.

They defecate like donkeys, this horribly smelly greenish colored mess. And it’s everywhere. They travel in packs of more than 14 million at a time, so if the herd lands somewhere to feed, the ground is soiled forever.

They keep talking about preventing these things from happening at airports with noise machines, artificial turf… There’s an obvious solution. Everyone would be safer and there would be fewer geese.

Near every runway, mount a jet engine securely to a pylon and just let it run. Geese get attracted, get sucked in, and viola!

Then, geese having the brain capacity of rye toast, will forget what happened to the late Mr. Beeker, and go check out the noisy thing down there.

Repeat as needed.

10

Christ, Biggirl, you crack me the fuck up. That was awesome!

11

They’re known as “Canadian Gray Ducks” in these parts.

12

The way I see it, getting sucked into a jet engine is going to be about as fast and painless as you can possibly get.

Some of the death penalty states should implement it as the execution du jour.

I believe I remember such a scene from Firefly.

13

Bolding mine.

I believe the term is “gaggle”. Now, usually I wouldn’t make a fuss over one little word, but I think I’ve known this particular word for about 30 years and never had the chance to use it.

Gaggle.

Thank you.

Some research shows me that they’re only a “gaggle” when they’re on the ground. In the air, they’re called a “skein”. I wonder if I will have occasion to use that word before I die.

14

You must be MN.

Oh, and I hate geese with a passion. Never met one I didn’t want to take a shovel to. Geese and wild turkeys.

15

That scene (the end of the first or second episode?) locked me in: the hero wasn’t required to be a boy scout, and they were letting us know that up front.

16

Yes.

A ***gaggle ***when they’re on the ground -
a ***skein ***when they’re in the air -
and ***pudding ***when they’re in the business end of a jet engine.

17

Bottle up the pastey remains and call it Goose Butter. Profit!

Or just put out some picnic tables on the other side of the engine and invite poor people to come and chow down.

18

The fuckers are everywhere, yet ‘endangered’. I never got that.

19

Ditto.

And an update: Investigation begins.

We should soon know if it was inded Harold Beeker.

And whether his demise was ultmately the result of fowl play.

20

I wonder what she’d say if she knew you fuck geese.

They’re not endangered. They have a conservation status of Least Concern, which is as far from endangered as you can get. Their numbers were declining in the early 20th century, but they’re not now.