Animal Insanity

I had a bad feeling about today. The signs were out there that it might be a crazy kind of day. The animals were definitely feeling it...

It started as soon as I walked out the door. (I mean, "hobbled" out. Still got the gout foot.) I hear this insanely kind-of-human-but-not-exactly laughing sound. It was extremely weird, and extremely loud. So I'm looking around at all the apartment windows trying to figure out which one now was being inhabited by a witch on crack (OK, I'm really just guessing that's what a witch on crack would sound like...), when all of the sudden something comes barrelling out of the bushes. Or, I should say, some THINGS. You guessed it.....psychotic ducks.

The first duck out of the bush was making all the noise. I'm guessing this was mainly because the second duck out of the bush had a billful of his skin in his mouth. So much so that even when the first duck finally broke free, the second duck was standing there with a feathers hanging out of his mouth. I wish I'd had my camera. Don't see a shot like that every day. Then she continued to glare at the first duck, who ran frantically across the road. It was quite a little spectacle. So then second duck waddles back to the bush, and first duck.....turns around and heads back to the bush as well. Some fowl never learn. I wish I'd had time to stay and watch the rest of it. I do fear though the way the second duck was guarding that bush that we'll soon have more little psycho ducklings quacking up the area. Just what we need....

So I get in the car and head down the road. Suddenly, I'm swarmed by three birds doing kamikaze dives right in front of the car. What in the world??? Then I see him...a poor little squirrel running for his life, while these birds kept dive-bombing him. Man, I don't know what he did, but he sure ticked them off. Don't mess with the birds, man.

So OK, things can't get much stranger, right? Well, on I go and about halfway to work I see this thing by the side of the road. Honestly, it looked like a GIANT skunk. A skunk the size of a dog. Which was fitting, because as it turned out, it WAS a dog. I have no idea what he was doing, but just as I got up to him he all of the sudden jumped straight up in the air, did a half-flip (No, I am not making this up!) and landed ON HIS BACK on the road!! OK...I need to go back home and go back to bed. My last glimpse of him in my rear view mirror had him still rolling around on the asphalt. How odd.

So, I don't know what was up, but I sure hope the critters have it all out of their system by now. The only good thing is they made my day with my co-workers seem relatively tame. I guess there's always a positive side to everything, huh?!

Daffy Ducks

I live in a park. A park that is filled with psychotic ducks.

That's right....

Psychotic Ducks.

I took this photo of some of them a couple of years ago. The white dude there was swimming around biting the feathers off of all the other ducks. The other white one and that grayish one were egging him on.

I tell you, they're pure evil.

Though they apparently don't mind tormenting those of their own kind, they actually live to annoy the humans who come into contact with them. They do this many different ways. Trust me, there is nothing more fun than to come home after an exhausting trip to the grocery store, dreading that you have to now carry 15 bags up 3 flights of stairs.....and as you get out of your car you see the mob approaching. The waddling, quacking mob. Honestly, I could land a job on Dancing With The Stars using the skills I have learned while loading my arms with bags, closing my car doors and trunk - all the while kicking 8-10 ducks out of my backseat and away from my food. Raunchy little things.

Their favorite trick is what I call "slow crossroads". I saw them the other day initiating a new member on their little game plan. I tell you, I could hear them.....quack, quack quack...."The humans come out of that hole over there in that brick thing. Make sure you look very relaxed and lazy laying in the grass. Hey - really fool them - act like you're sleeping. HAHAHA! Then, as they approach that big metal thing on the rubber circles, get up. Slowly now...don't get in a hurry. The metal thing will start to purr...now we kick it up. Get in line behind the others....HAHAHA!!! Here we go - one at a time...single file across the road. HEY - SLOW DOWN! They're starting to look impatient...walk slower! HAHAHA!! OH - they're blowing the horn thing already! We've got them right where we want them! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

No, I have not lost my mind. I tell you...they do this. I have been awakened at three in the morning by cars blowing their horns frenetically outside my window. So as I groggily look out the window, what do I see? THOSE STUPID DUCKS!!! And there is one, I kid you not, sounds just like he's laughing. Laughing Duck I call him.

I hate Laughing Duck.

So, if someday you hear of someone going on a rampage in Northern Ohio and slaughtering a group of "innocent" ducks......Don't believe a word of it.

They deserved everything they got!