That Gander Wants to Fucking Kill Me

At this particular farm on which the cabin resides, there is a lot of fowl. Chicks and ducks and geese, just like the song in Oklahoma!, but of course, this is Wisconsin!, and I don't have a surrey, with or without a fringe on top. I have a Saturn.

Upon arrival, after introducing myself to my generous hosts, I returned to my car to find the largest of the geese, a gray bastard who well might be a gander, pecking the shit out of one of my front tires. I chalked it up to my running over a few grains he didn't want wasted. But now I'm not so sure.

I take a regular walk past the bird coops, and every time I do, this same gray bastard of a gander gives me the stink eye. He stands stock still, and uses the full length of his neck to keep his head pointed right at me. Sometimes he gives a loud honk to warn me away. Or perhaps he's just saying, "Up yours, city boy." I wouldn't know. I don't speak goose. But I was pretty sure he just doesn't like me.

Today cemented it. I was returning from my walk, heading right through the gaggle of geese, the paddle of ducks, and the murder of chickens (well, it's a murder of crows, and I don't know the group name for chickens). I was sort of in my own world, as I will sometimes be during a nice walk.

Suddenly, HONK-HONK-HONK-HONK! And that bastard of a gray gander was actually running at me from some distance. The fowl in general tend to get close but not too close to humans (since they're fed by humans), but I hadn't seen this behavior before.

The bastard of a gray gander was slinked down low like a cat, his neck parallel to the ground, pointing at me like an arrow, his beak heading right for my shins.

It was all too quick - and yet simultaneously in slow motion - for me to be seriously alarmed. When I stopped in my tracks and turned my head toward that gray bastard of a gander, he stopped running, pointed his neck and head upward and let out his loudest HONK-HONK-HONK-HONK! yet.

I was probably six feet from my Carhartts taking a serious pecking from this gray bastard of a gander. But I stood my ground, B&E readers.

To you, gray bastard of a gander, I tell you this: I got my eye on you, and the missus comes from a country in which goose is served for special occasions. Don't make me create a special occasion for you, punk.