animals

i'm not typically that scared of animals. i mean, don't get me wrong, i will run away from a particularly aggressive squirrel as fast as the next person, but i think i'm quite brave when it comes to our 4-footed friends. take for example how close i dared come to these feisty wolves, which i found at the l.l. bean outlet. mysteriously, they never once moved. i am convinced that they were trying to get me to believe that they were fake, and then once i was within reach they would pounce on me and eat me for their dinner, tired as they must have been of whatever mr. bean was feeding them. i'm sure i looked like a tasty and meaty treat. but i didn't take the bait. i showed them no fear, walked very near to them, took their photos, the poor suckers, and walked away unscathed. i am wolf-master.

so anyway, i'm not typically that scared of animals. this morning, however, i had an encounter with some local deer that really challenged my fortitude.

when i leave for my morning run, i run up my driveway (which i realize is not the steepest driveway in the world, but is steep enough to remind me of a video i watched in 3rd grade of walter payton in which sweetness himself was running up and down hills in a sweet new pair of 'roos talking about how this exercise helped him be a better running back. every morning as i run up the driveway-world's equivalant of mt. mckinley, i pretend that i am walter payton in a sweet new pair of 'roos and i believe in my heart that i will one day break into the nfl [see nfl-sized ankles below, in previous post]) and turn left. as i made the turn this morning i saw three deer, a mother and her two fawns, about 75 yards away. as i approached with absolutely no stealth (believe me, all this weight coming down with gravity at 6:15 in the morning is LOUD, even with a new set of nikes) the two younger and apparently more fearful deer ran away. but the mother remained, motionless. she just stood there. we made eye contact as i continued to run towards her, albeit at a pace so obscenely slow that she might have been wondering whether or not i was standing still. but i was not. i was 'running' as i do. she, however, was as still as those tricky wolves at l.l. bean.

finally, i got near enough that, if she wanted, she could pounce on me with her ferocious maternal instinct and beat the living crap out of me, taking my nikes with her as she went on her mambi-bambi way. she still stood silent and stiff, statuesque, as if stuffed. i stomped. i think i even sang a couple lines of the linkin park song blaring through my ipod earbuds. still nothing but a twitch in the muscles along the neck, which, i had never noticed till now, was quite large and formidable. i made a few more gestures, attempting to overwhelm her with my brute strength and threat of intense motion, but to no avail. and so i turned tail and ran off in the other direction, a little faster than usual, thinking that i had more opponents to think about than a mid-sized almost-tame suburban deer.

leave me alone, you crazy animals! i'm just trying to run in peace! i mean, if you....hey, wait a second. sorry about this, but i'm going to need to cut this post short. there is a rather intimidating yellow jacket buzzing around on the ceiling. i think i need some help here....

greg.