- Two summers ago, while eating breakfast on the deck at my parents' house, I saw what I thought was a mountain lion in the apple orchard. I alerted everyone at the table and as the large cat came closer to the house, I yelled for everyone to run inside. I had also read just days before about a bear sighting in the area, and might have yelled something about that too. People enjoyed pointing out that there are no mountains around my parents' house and it was determined that the mountain lion was a feral cat. Everyone made fun of me.
- Months later, while driving around Letchworth State Park, I was convinced I saw a monkey riding on the back of a motorcycle. Aware that I already had one strike against me with the mountain lion, I debated not saying anything. However, I was so sure that I had seen a monkey and that the sighting would vindicate me, I shouted it out and demanded that we turn around to follow the motorcycle. It turns out it was a grown man riding around with a stuffed orangutan on the back of his bike. Everyone made fun of me. To be fair though, who the hell does that?
-Months later, on my way home from a trip to Boston, I was one of only two cars parked at a rest stop on the thruway. Standing outside of the car drinking a coffee and stretching, I saw something moving in the distance. Squinting to make it out, I noticed that it was quickly running in my direction. It was super fast and coming right at me and I knew I wouldn't have enough time to get in the car. I debated jumping on the hood of the car, but I froze with fear and just stood there as the large cat with its giant tail ran right past me. After it happened I got in the car and could only laugh because I knew no one was going to believe me. I called my mother and even she said, "Ooh, was it a tiger, Jess?" I later received numerous emails with the subject line, "Was this the cat?" which included pictures like this.
So anyway, I was thrilled today to hear about the sightings and recent capture of a bobcat on Staten Island. A bobcat. Staten Island. Who's laughing now, fools?
4 comments:
i love that your sightings end up involving "shouting out." that could be your downfall! just mutter it loudly enough for it be audible enough for you to say "that's what i friggin SAID" if you end up being right, but juuuust quiet enough as to be retractable if you're wrong. what's with the shouting, jess? you're disturbing the wildlife.
Volume control. It never occurred to me.
Here's the thing. I've been muttering most of my life. Mutter is my main communication mode. Because the people around me usually never hear anything I say, I NEED to shout during these sightings. I could never live with myself if a friend or family member was eaten by a cat because of my mumble. Plus, I don't want the last thing a loved one says to me to be, "Did you say cougar?"
You're probably right but come on Meredith! You try seeing a monkey on a bike and not shout.
I would have thought that, in the land where everything is bigger (from the deficit to waistlines), oversized feral beasts were a common occurrence. Maybe that’s the problem, while you were looking north spluttering about big cats, everyone else was looking south watching the grizzly fight the giant mutated chicken that had escaped from the factory farm down the road (‘Rooster Booster Chicken, it’s pluck-pluck-plucking great and not one bit of it is genetically modified*)
Here in the UK we have so much feral urban wildlife (foxes, teenagers etc.) that to make an impact a wild animal has to either get about by unicycle or be spectral with red glowing eyes.
*True, it’s ALL genetically modified. Screw the Colonel, we’ve got Victor Von Frankenstein cooking up in the lab and our catch-phrase is ‘we belong dead set on a family bucket full of giant wings, and by giant wings we mean giant, the last time you saw wings like this, the suckers had jet engines under them!’**
** Big slogan? So what, the bucket it’s printed on has the circumference of a paddling pool.
I like slogans to have a footnote or two.
Looking forward to hearing that full-disclosure Rooster Booster motto it in a 5-second jingle.
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