My neighbors have gone insane over coyotes. When that woman was giving me her coyote song and dance it wasn’t news to me. I heard a similar hysteria just the night before on my walk from a different, yet equally bizarre, set of neighbors.
On Wednesday I procrastinated taking my walk. I waited until the last possible minute and in the middle of my walk decided to walk just a little more, which meant I would be walking in the dead of night. This is something I never, ever do but I timed it well and knew it would only be that dark for the last 1/2 block. That’s exactly what happened.
I was playing with my music on my phone (Grease soundtrack, if you’re curious) when I noticed car headlights in my periphery coming at me. I didn’t pay them much attention because I was walking on a stretch of sidewalk, but that changed quickly when, like a scene from Miami Vice, the car pulled up right next to me–three people in the car–with windows rolling down before coming to a complete stop.
My first thought was that I should fashion a holster for my hammer and start carrying it on my walks.
Then the woman in the front seat told me to immediately stop walking and turn around.
“You need to stop walking and turn around. Like, right now.” She said this on a gasp, like she was pushing the words out on little puffs of air.
Maybe I’m too cynical or stupid or naive or have seen too many episodes of Dateline and Fight Back! with David Horowitz, but I had to ask why.
“Okay, why?”
“There’s a huge coyote right down the street. It’s too dangerous. He is, like, right there and so dangerous. I wouldn’t walk anymore if I was you.”
And this exchange happened between the front and back seat.
“Well, I don’t know if he’s huge.”
“He’s pretty big!”
“But he’s not like a wolf. If he was like a wolf he would be huge.”
“Okay,” the original woman says turning back to me. “Maybe he’s not huge. He’s medium. Medium-large.”
My second thought was that I come across some really odd people.
“So, where is this coyote, again?” I wasn’t downplaying what they were telling me, and I appreciated they stopped and warned me, but I was less than one block from my street. I thought maybe I could walk it, because otherwise I wasn’t sure how I was going to backtrack to avoid this hugely medium-large sized beast.
“No way. You can’t keep walking. He is right there.”
“I guess I should call my husband to pick me up…” and by this point this is what I decided I was going to do because like a good little pot-stirrer, she got me all worked up and convinced that all those robberies we’ve had were actually committed by werecoyotes.
They all said that was a great idea (there was a man driving the car) and told me to stay safe. I was wondering where I was going to wait for the Mister when they pulled away from the curb and drove off. Now, I wasn’t about to get in a car with strangers, but an offer would have been nice considering they felt my life was at risk. Better yet, they could have waited with me until the Mister showed up. But no, they took off and left me there with the hugely medium-large sized beast looking for it’s next meal. You’ve seen me in compression pants. One look at me and any hungry carnivore would think Christmas came in July.
I stood there, wondering where to go and watched as the car drove away…and parked in the driveway three houses down.
What the?
Then the girls ran out of the car and the guy made growling noises and they freaked out, started screaming, and ran inside and slammed the door shut. While I watched standing in the dark.
Huh?
I called the Mister with some trepidation. You have to understand that my husband, bless his heart, thinks I can handle anything. Nothing worries him. Nothing makes him jealous. I think in his head I am untouchable, immortal, and omnipotent. This sounds great, and most of the time it is, but when you are home alone and convinced a marauding pack of werecoyote robbers is about to burst through your door, “You’ll be fine” is not what you want to hear.
This is why I made sure I sounded stressed and anxious when I called. I copied my friend with the poor size references and pushed out my words on puffy breaths of desperation. “You have to come get me right now! Please, hurry! I’m on Hancock. I’ll come out when I see you.”
So I waited what seemed like forever in the pitch black of night but probably was only a few minutes. When he rolled up he looked, of course, as unruffled as he would if he were picking me up from a DMV appointment.
“You won’t believe what just happened to me!” And with great fanfare I told him the story of the Coyote Crazy neighbors who practically left me wearing paper frills and holding a bouquet garni.
I’ll give him credit for laughing in the right places. I let his comment about coyotes being afraid of humans slide because I’ve heard that before. Where he began to slowly circle the drain is when we walked into the house and he said, “That is not what I thought you were calling me about.”
“Oh, did you think I saw someone suspicious?”
“No, I thought you really had to go to the bathroom.”
“…”
“…”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I thought your stomach was upset and you had to go to the bathroom.”
“Why in the…please explain…what?”
“Well, you sounded all desperate. Like you really needed me to get there fast.”
“Because I was trying to communicate that my life was in danger! Why would you even think that? How do you hear scared and desperate and think I have to go to the bathroom?!”
“There was that one time…”
“THAT WAS 13 YEARS AGO! Are you ever going to forget that ONE DAY 13 years ago?!”
“I don’t think so.”
Internet, we are so getting a cat.
We have tons of coyotes. And they are afraid of humans, and usually don’t come right into neighborhoods where people are roaming about. When we see that in any wild animal (like foxes too) , we think one word: rabies.
Having said that, though, there are reports of little ones getting mauled quite a bit in Denver.
I can’t believe those people lived three houses down and didn’t even offer to let me wait at their house! Or waited with my for my husband to show up! Some people. They probably would let Morris starve, too.
Morris, you are about to find your forever home.
Damn straight. If he ever comes home!!
Ahaha! That’s awesome.
I’m laughing with you, mind you . . . and it’s more of a nervous laughter. I had one of those times, about fifteen years ago . . . with friends. And my friend’s husband still brings it up. Please. That is not something you remember. And if you do, you keep it quite to yourself, thank you very much.
*Also, if he really thought it was a bathroom emergency, what took him so long? Geez. :)
He LOVES to tease me about it, and it wasn’t even that bad!! Guys and their bathroom humor.
Okay, now I want to hear the “that ONE DAY 13 years ago” story. :D
It’s not even that bad! My stomach is super sensitive, especially when I’m stressed. One day I must have been stressed and ate something–maybe dairy, because I’m lactose intolerant–and then we went on a walk. During the walk I started getting really bad stomach cramps (nothing else!!) and having had a sensitive stomach my whole life, I knew it wasn’t going to get any better and would get much worse if I didn’t take medicine. Walking definitely wasn’t going to help! So I parked my butt on a garden wall and said no way, no how, I can’t move another step. My husband had to walk all the way back home and get the car. Once he came back with the car and realized I was okay, he considered that an open license for him to laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh until his couldn’t breathe.
HE HAS NEVER FORGOTTEN THAT DAY. In fact, it’s like a fishing story. Every year it gets more and more fantastical in his mind. Gah!!!!
Glad to hear you’re okay. I never gave too much of a fuss about coyotes when I was a kid, but then again, ignorance in youth is pretty common. We would go swimming in our pool in the evenings, and hear them howling in the distance. I figured that if I ever SAW one, I’d maybe consider getting out of the pool. :-)
Your husband is hilarious. I guess that one day, 13 years ago, was pretty traumatic for him!
He’s a good sport. I say he’s calm and unruffled, but he would probably say I’m a lit firecracker with a soft touch. We’re probably both a little correct and a good balance. :)
Hahaha! I’m giggling over here. Morris, you are living a charmed life.
I went walking in the park last Tuesday morning and all was fine. When I arrived Wednesday, in the afternoon, later than I usually walk, there were signs that said “Coyote trapping, keep your dogs on a leash”. Okay, now I’m fearful and there weren’t many people there at that time of day so I cut my walk short. When I told my daughter about it (the mother of my grandchildren) she said they would be scared and not approach. I said they would lick their chops and say “that’s a meal, a BIG meal!” I saw one in my cul de sac last year. We have wooded areas around us.
In the spring we always have a few bear sitings around our neighborhood (they like the birdfeeders) and I move my walks indoors for a few weeks. I stopped doing one of my favorite county park twilight walks when a wolf pack returned. My friends do it and say I’m being foolish but wolves? Thanks, no.
As for coyotes, I remember listening to them when helping out at my parent’s hobby farm before they sold it. Scared the pants off me. They could have eaten all the chickens – I wasn’t going out there after dark!
Throw in tick-borne illnesses and the wildlife in our state is a horror story. But I’m pretty sure my neighbors would invite me in and offer me coffee while I was waiting for my husband. :)
Just had to mention, after I read this post two mornings go, we found a baby snake in our drive way. I didn’t think much of it, but Rick told me to come look–because garter snakes (our typical variety) “don’t behave like this.” The little 5 inch thing was making an “S” and lunging and striking. When we looked close, his little head was triangular…and our Son, very versed in wildlife, says, “that’s a baby diamondback rattlesnake”–at which point I had a nervous breakdown.
ON MY DRIVEWAY?!
And if there’s babies… You know what that means. And I am having NONE of poisonous snakes aroundy house. That’s why I moved out of the blistering hell of Texas and Louisiana.
It took us an hour and a consultation with our 80YO snake charmer neighbor (who is a retired lady math teacher) to learn that it’s probably a bull snake, often mistaken for a rattler in this area because of behavior and looks. Still the bull snake grows to 6-8 feet–but is nonvenomous and controls rodents.
Scale: rodents (and squirrels with plague) VS. 8 ft snake. WTH?!! NEITHER, please!
omg, I laughed out loud at this post. Too funny.
A few months ago I saw three coyotes on my morning walk in Irvine. Irvine, for pete’s sake, where I can’t imagine any wildlife daring to trespass on the highly manicured lawns. My husband’s boss’s (small yappy) dog was eaten by a coyote right in front of him less than a mile from here .
I have a similar (worse) lactose-intolerant bathroom story from eleven years ago, at an Indian wedding in Manhattan, in a black tie ballgown. I have never lived that one down. I’ve also never eaten Indian food since.