A New Hampshire Standoff

  

Weekend Assignment #48: Recount an amusing tale of a pet attacking someone or something. By "amusing," I mean that a) no one was seriously injured, least of all the pet (pet humiliation is okay), b) you laughed about it at the time, or sometime shortly thereafter. You know: Funny! Okay, then.

   This could only be considered sports in the most indirect way.... but I don't have a Mom journal yet, so I'll tell the story here. There was some running involved, so I  suppose we're in the suburbs of sports talk.

   My husband, my sister and I were in New Hampshire scouting out a property we eventually bought. I was about 6 months pregnant at the time, which only adds to how stupid we ended up looking. We were in Canaan, NH...which is a pretty rural location.

   We're talking really  rural, here. There was a deli/gas station on the "main road" that had a sign which read "Eat Here And Get Gas." People there refer to a trip to Lebanon, NH (population: 11,000 or so) as "going in to the city." Canaan is so small, the 7-11 is called "8-5."

   Even in the country, a preggers Smurf gets hungry. As my sister and I drove around looking for the Flatulent Deli, we managed to go way off course, and we ended up near a nice lake. After a pleasant walk, we got back in the Jeep and started a search and destroy mission to get me some apples, or something.

   In the distance, we saw a farm stand. Very Rockwellian. New Hampster is farm country, and this place looked like Mecca to my pregnant appetite. Plenty of nice juicy apples were just ahead, maybe a hundred yards North of where we had suddenly parked.

   Why had we parked? The road was blocked. What was blocking it? A moose.

    Now, I realize that mooses(?) aren't usually the main players in a woodland animal horror story, but there was simply no way around the SOB.

   Mooses don't really have a lot to do. They basically eat, sleep, avoid bears, and make little mooses. This particular moose was apparently well-fed, well-rested, afraid of nothing, and had been laid recently. I can say this because he didn't move for several minutes as my sister and I stared at him.

   Now, I love a chance to watch nature in the habitat it occupies. I have sat on my porch watching heron sail gracefully over Monponsett Lake. I have paid to go on a  whale watch...which ended with me briefly seeing a half foot of a rare right whale for 3 seconds of a 4 hour boat ride. I have sat in a car and watched a coyote ravage my neighbor's garbage. But I was hungry for two, and ol' Bullwinkle here was blocking the path to the farm stand.

   Honking the horn merely made him look up. Gunning the Jeep at him did even less....I think he knew that I had no intention of killing him. Still, I also had absolutely no intention of backing down from someone who looked like he hung out with a flying squirrel...so we slowly got out of the Jeep.

   We inched to the front of the car, totally without any sort of plan. My cowardly sister used my excess mass to shield her from Das Moose. As the Elder, I decided to take the initiative. I tried whistling as I gestured to the side of the road. No response. Telling it to "sit" also got no response. I needed to take it to the next level.

   I fished in my purse and found a package of Pop Tarts. I carry Pop Tarts in my purse because it is impossible to get 15 minutes of shopping done with my husband without him trying to slink away to eat. If I give him (or even offer him) a Pop Tart, he shuts up long enough for me to properly apply myself to shopping. I have worked with a lot of students with special needs, and I have noticed similar Purse Stashes among the student parentage.

   These were good ones- vanilla chocolate fudge, or something. I figured the moose wasn't much smarter than my hub, and I fully expected the moose to skip to my lou. He did lift his massive head when I unwrapped them, although he didn't follow the pastry when I tossed it to the side of the road.

   I took out the second Pop Tart, and this time I took a bite out of it, in case old Moosey didn't recognize it as food. Unfortunately, he also failed to follow this one as I threw it to the side of the road.

   So I decided to reason with him. I took a few steps forward and lowered my voice, which generally makes my students shut up to better hear me. "Listen....I'm pregnant...I get hungry. All I want to do is drive down to that farm stand and get myself a few apples. If you allow us to pass, you can be sure that I'll toss you some apples when we drive home."

   I may have been imagining it, but the moose did seem to change his expression. He was thinking about it. Had he been able to communicate back to me, I bet he would have tried to up the ante...."Hell, throw in a few carrots, and I'll pose for some pictures." I say this because he didn't accept my offer. He stayed in the middle of the road, staring at me with that look mooses get when they stare at people.

   Being close to Canada, I tried the same offer in French....no reply.

   This moose was starting to get on my nerves, and I have what my husband politely refers to as a "Gallic temper." Moose are not animals that inspire dread...I wouldn't have got out of the Jeep to confront a grizzly in this manner.

   Especially with Shea as backup. Shea, my younger sister, made a point of staying directly behind me during the whole confrontation. Keep in mind that I was pregnant, and also keep in mind that I essentially raised her from the time my parents died. While I was proud to see that she was a few inches smarter than me, I was less than pleased to see that she intended to shield herself from this monster with both me and her yet-unborn niece.

   Some situations call for psychology. Others call for violence. I considered using my Mace on him, but he looked a little big for that. Besides, when you are 5 feet tall, implied  violence is a better bet.

   I decided to go Old Army on that ass. "Listen here, Bullwinkle....enough is enough. Two things are about to happen. You're gonna move, and I'm gonna get my GD apples. So get to steppin'!!"

   The moose made a snorting sound, and took a few steps towards us. I was shocked at how fast he could move...but not as shocked as he must have been to see how fast I can move- even when I'm retaining a great deal of water. The only thing funnier than my speed waddling was Shea sliding across the hood of the Jeep and diving through the open window like Bo and Luke Duke. We were both in the car in a New Hampshire Minute, and I have never driven that far (or that fast) in reverse in my 12 years behind the wheel.

   As it turns out, one can drive around the lake and approach the farm stand from the north. The people there were not impressed with my confrontation, and I thought I heard one of them mumble "Silly city girl...we find dummies like you by the side of the road when the Spring Thaw happens." Native New Hampsters seem to have some way of dealing with roadblock mooses, and they also seem to want to keep that information far away from Boston flatlanders like myself.

   We went home by the road which the moose had been blocking. He was still there, although he had wandered off to the side of the road. My sister thought I was crazy when I stopped the Jeep again.

    I got out and rolled an apple over to the moose. He lowered his head and sniffed it....and as he did, I beaned him right between the eyes with the apple I had been palming in my throwing hand. I was in the Jeep and gone before he could have even begun to comprehend what had just happened to him.

   Nature is inexorable. Humans are merely guests on this planet. When we have a nuclear war and wipe ourselves out, old Mother Earth will still be here. Deer and moose were around before humans, and they will one day graze on the grass growingoff the grave of the Last Human (who I've assumed will bury himself).

   That said, we rule the planet at the moment. That moose made me drive around a lengthy lake, but I had the last laugh. I doubt he's blogging about taking an apple to the dome in HIS journal, and unless I am suddenly speared by antlers through my office window, I won the battle AND the war.

   I'll tell you this...if he gets in my way again, he'll be a trophy hanging over my fireplace. Homey don't play that. I'll let him rule the outskirts of Canaan, New Hampshire. I own the rest of the world... and he'd better recognize.