I have a long and extremely fucked-up history of being plagued by random creatures, living and/or dead. It would take way too much work to fill you in on all the things, so I’ll just remind you that I probably brought this on myself because of that one time when I gave my mom dead hermit crabs for Christmas.
(If you just can’t help yourself, you can find most/all/at least some of that shit around here somewhere.)
Recently, a black cat showed up at our house. (Not Suzanne, for those of you who remember that psycho.) He just made himself right the fuck at home and irritated the shit out of me from the get-go. Then he started killing rodents, which were apparently also living in our yard. THIS ISN’T A FUCKING HOSTEL, ASSHOLES.
Anyway, his sadistic tendencies instantly ingratiated him with my husband, who would pet him and tell him how wonderful he was every time he produced a corpse. I, on the other hand, being a normal human being, would either scream and run or freeze and be trapped, depending on my proximity to his dead rat/squirrel/mouse/whatever he found to murder that day. Lately I’ve spent a lot of time crouched in a chair on the porch, whimpering, “GOOD KITTY NOOOOO GET IT THE HELL AWAY FROM ME OH MY GOD PLEASE STOP JUST GO!”
He loves to torment me with dead things, but he is absolutely joyful when his victim survives until he finds me. Then he can toss whatever it is up in the air while running around me in circles until I die.
So I migrated to the deck because it’s less accessible to my enemies.
I spend a lot of time out there at night, because I don’t sleep well and I haven’t quit smoking for the 6th time yet and at least it’s not heroin, okay? Fuck.
There are a lot of noises out in the woods, but mostly I just worry about squeaks or cat footsteps because the Murder Cat is one sneaky sonofabitch. I can tell the difference between a deer and a possum or a ninja by the sounds they make while blithely trespassing in my yard. (Ninjas sound like silence but when they jump it’s with purpose and cunning, unlike armadillos who can’t seem to control themselves and just leap into the air over any damn thing.)
Early one morning, around 3 o’clock, I heard the sounds of a fierce battle coming from under my trampoline. It sounded like a dragon fighting a goat, but a dragon would have trouble fitting under a trampoline and surely I’ve had enough goat issues to last a lifetime.
It should be a surprise to no one that I ran.
I woke up my husband and told him about the dragon/unicorn/goat fight going on 10 feet away from me and waited for him to be relieved that I escaped unscathed, but apparently 3 a.m. is too early for feelings and he sucks so he just stared at me like I was crazy.
The next time I went outside, there was a deer standing closer than usual to the house. (And they aren’t shy; they get pretty damn close anyway.) It stayed and stayed and stayed for days and days and days and I thought it loved me and wanted to be my pet forever, but then I realized it had a messed up leg and probably couldn’t leave because hobbling is hard in the woods. I guess.
So I forgot all about everything because that’s what I do, but then another time I heard something big-sounding in the yard in the middle of the night and I was in a really bad mood so I yelled, “GO AWAY I HATE YOU AND EVERYTHING IN THE ENTIRE WORLD JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!” Instead of being scared and running away because I am scary and wild animals are “more afraid of us than we are of them,” (this is a lie) it ran toward me. It sounded like thunder would sound if it had feet and was barreling towards me at a ridiculously high rate of speed. This was definitely not a unicorn. Dragons aren’t that fast, plus a dragon would probably just do that fire breathing thing because dragons don’t give a fuck about Fitbits or steps or whatever that weird counting shit is that people are doing these days.
It should be a surprise to no one that I ran.
I didn’t bother with my husband because he “seriously doubts” there was any kind of beast-fight in the yard and he doesn’t know shit about shit.
The very next day I miraculously remembered the events of the previous night, so naturally I decided that I was as good a tracker as the next guy who claimed to be able to track things because, fuck, I can read and I know stuff and also I have a sword. This was brilliant because these creatures don’t come out in the daylight (duh) and even if they did (it would be just my luck for that fucking goat/unicorn to be some kind of anomaly that does whatever the hell it wants, rules of the wild be damned) then I would just brace myself with the sword held out in front of me and let the creature impale itself. Like I said, brilliant.
I immediately found Large Piles of Animal Shit. (I told you I could track like a mofo.) I took pictures even though that meant I had to put down my sword for a minute, because bravery is one of the things I’m known for.
Googling “Dragon Poop, Unicorn Shit, and Goat Crap” cleared up exactly nothing about this mystery, but I did scar myself for life and now there’s a sticky note on my laptop that says, “Be wary of Googling feces.”
Anyway, eventually I found matching shit pictures and it wasn’t a unicorn or a goat or a dragon. IT WAS A WILD BOAR.
I know, right?!
Seriously, I mean, there was a bear here recently (truth) and there’s this humongous coyote with absolutely no fear of automobiles and I think it’s because he’s actually a wolf (werewolf, duh, that’s obviously why it’s not scared of cars and I don’t know why people don’t just listen to me). But even though I know all this, a wild boar still seemed a little unlikely. Nevertheless, I employed my sweet-ass wildlife tracking abilities, albeit from my car because hello, I’m not insane and I’m not fucking with a boar. Driving slowly down the road I decided, based on absolutely nothing, that the boar lived in an overhang near the shit piles.
Armed with my poop pictures, I felt like I had enough evidence of Wild Hog Activity to tell everyone I knew that there was Definitely Absolutely Without a Doubt a mean pig living in my woods. There was skepticism because people are dumb and maybe because my first theory (dragon/unicorn/goat) was a little off.
BUT THEN.
My son revealed that while riding a 4-wheeler he saw approximately 10 baby pigs. (Fucksake, they’re called piglets have you never seen Winnie the Pooh?)
Boom. Wild boar. Go fuck yourself. I know things.
(I did not ask him if he saw them before or after he wrecked the 4-wheeler and sustained a serious concussion.) (I know it was serious because on the way to the ER he told me I smelled good and that’s the first nice thing he’s said to me in 13 years and he’s 14 now.)
We needed to do something immediately, because I can handle a lot of things (no I cannot) but not a feral-ass pig. Especially one with piglets (boarlets?) because then they are vicious motherfuckers. (I already knew this from my research, but also, my daughter decided to be super helpful and, while at a wildlife conservation place, she told the Animal Police about my sword plan without mentioning the fucking sword, but they said it was A-Okay, which is good because what the fuck child, do you want me to go to jail?
Because my body is a bitch and never lets me do anything fun, I had a migraine and was not available to help track this animal. So of course they didn’t find it. Hello? Who knows what they’re doing here, me and my sword or you with your “hunting experience?”
That’s what I thought.
It’s been weeks since there’s been any suspicious activity, so I guess the beast-pig realized that I was no regular human, but a mighty swordswoman and dangerous adversary, and made the logical choice Not to Fuck with Me.
Or it was just a lame-ass wandering farm pig. BUT HOW LIKELY IS THAT?
We Don't Chew Glass 