A morning post about fowl

I hate geese. I hate them. They are big, loud, mean and, as far as I can tell, a completely pointless bird. I would never eat goose, nor would I make a breakfast of scrambled goose eggs. I suppose you could use their feathers for pillows and blankets and stuff, but if I saw a pillow in Target with a label that said "100% Goose Down" I would put it back on the shelf and slowly back away. I hate geese that much.

One time in high school, I decided it would be fun to have a picnic by Newburgh Lake. For those of you who aren't from Livonia, Newburgh Lake is this random lake right next to an extremely busy and irritating-to-drive road (Newburgh Road, coincidentally). It's like someone just decided, "Hey, Newburgh is a really stressful road to be on. What would make it less stressful? Oh right, a lake!" And then they put a lake there. Like they wanted to pretend that Newburgh was some rural little paradise where people could come and camp and fish and reflect quietly on life, instead of what it actually is - a road that I've been trying to avoid driving during Lent because it greatly tempts me to toss out the four letter words I gave up for these long 40 days.

By now you might be thinking that this post is about how much I hate Newburgh instead of about how much I hate geese. But never fear, we are getting to the geese.

So back to this picnic by Newburgh Lake. There was one picnic table next to the lake and I happily set up my little lunch there, looking at the fresh water that they'd just refilled the lake with because the old water was so polluted that if you accidentally fell in you'd come out with an extra eye and the ability to receive radio waves with your nose. As I tried to tune out the sound of the busy street above me, I noticed that there was a pair of geese hanging out by the shore (is it still a shore if there is no sand?).

I knew there were geese around, as evidenced by the countless tiny mountains of goose poop I'd had to tip toe around when I was walking to the picnic table. But I didn't see them when I sat down, so I thought I was in the clear. When I noticed the two geese, they were minding their own business, so I decided to just enjoy my lunch and mind my own business too.

But then I pulled out my PB&J and, I kid you not, at least 50 geese descended upon me. They started coming from every direction, like Children of the Corn. Except I've never seen Children of the Corn because I hate scary movies, but it was how I imagined Children of the Corn would be - like the victim is standing in the middle of a corn field and all of a sudden these crazy zombie children are appearing from between the corn stalks to come eat the victim's face off.

ANYWAY, these geese started coming at me from everywhere. I was literally surrounded by geese, at least 3 geese deep at any given angle. They were all honking and grumping at me in a way that let me know that they were accustomed to either being voluntarily fed by humans or taking what they wanted by force. I was unwilling to feed them my sandwich, one, because I wanted it myself, and two, because I knew there wasn't enough to go around and I didn't want to make any of them angry by leaving them out.

They got so close to the picnic table that I had to climb on top of it and stand on the table part. I honestly thought I was not going to make it out of there alive. The worst part was, I knew the people driving on Newburgh could see what was happening, and I imagined them all sitting in their nice goose-free cars, laughing at my misfortune. People actually walked by, saw my blatant terror, smirked and continued walking. I mean, I don't know what I expected them to do (run at the geese with their arms flailing? Negotiate with the hostage takers?), but they could have at least held back the smirk.

I finally decided that I could make another sandwich if I ever made it home, so I wound up and threw my PB&J as hard as I could into the lake. The geese went bonkers and fell all over each other trying to get there first, and I high-tailed it to my car. I knew two things after that situation. First, I will never picnic at Newburgh Lake again. Two, I hate geese.

So this morning I was a little early to work. The parking lot was pretty empty, and only one office had lights on. I was walking in a daze, trying to pretend like I was still at home curled up in my warm bed with my sweet sleeping baby snuggled up next to me.

Then I heard it. The tell-tale honking of an evil goose approaching. Suddenly, amidst a flurry of flapping wings, two MASSIVE geese landed right next to me. These geese were how I imagine the children of Aretha Franklin and Yao Ming would be, if they got together and had babies. And if they were geese.

They looked at me with their dark beady eyes and I froze mid-step. I was so close to my office, but they could get to me before I made it, if they wanted. I slowly started walking to my office door, my key at the ready.

Just as I stepped on the curb, Yaoretha unfolded his massive wingspan and flew to about a foot away from me, honking at me like, "Yeah you better get in that office b*tch." And then he took a major poop right in the middle of the parking lot. I hate geese.