New Addition to 'Laugh Out Loud' on My Sidebar

Three Posts from The Adaptive Curmudgeon's Blog.  Every word is pure gold.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Despite Evidence To The Contrary, I Am Not Crazy

Posted on October 5, 2012 

Here’s what my neighbor would have seen yesterday. Assuming, of course, I had neighbors, which I don’t.

I went charging out of my house at full tilt and stopped in the yard to shout “what’s the matter, not getting laid?”. Then I spun around three times while waving my arms and making a sound like this “Yeeghgh Blah Ploot Gnuff Errak”. Undeterred I sprinted to the woodpile, grabbed a perfectly innocent piece of wood and hurled it in a high arc onto the grass. Angrily I stomped back to my house only to return with a shotgun, wave it around a bit, aim at the inert piece of firewood, and pump two rounds into it (fatally wounding the wood). Then, smiling, I laughed uncontrollably for a full minute before hurling the wood over the fence and returning to my house.

Everything I did made sense.  In my next post all will be made clear.

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Despite Evidence To The Contrary, I Am Not Crazy (Part II)

Posted on October 7, 2012 

I was minding my own business when one of my roosters went to Defcon 4. Roosters only go berserk for a few reasons:

• They feel like it.
• A hen is missing.
• A legitimate threat looms
• The dog is sleeping peacefully and that’s unacceptable.
• Space rays have shorted the rooster’s two brain cells.

I stepped out to investigate. The rooster was fluttering around the yard and squawking. It reminded me of the children’s story. Chickens (both roosters and hens) do indeed squawkexactly as if the the sky was falling. I get it.

I didn’t see any raccoons, hawks, or polar bears. What was the big deal? I noticed all the hens had abandoned him and were nowhere to be found. I joked aloud; “What’s the matter, not getting laid?”

Just then a hawk blasted out of nearby brush. My day had just gotten interesting.

The hawk had appeared only twenty feet away. It had been in a waist high bunch of thistles and my presence did nothing to spook it. It was closing like a missile. The rooster was toast!

I admire a good rooster; they’re obnoxious little monsters but they’ve got heart. This one was going to keep sounding the alarm and mortal danger wasn’t going to deter him. He’d probably go toe to toe with a wolverine if he thought it was necessary. He’d known the hawk was in the bushes yet he’d been warning the hens to clear out rather than wisely running for his life. I wonder if he’d deliberately made himself the target of the hawk’s interest to buy the hens’ escape? (Ladies, here’s an important tip. Just like roosters, a human male will face death bravely and without hesitation if that’s part of his job duties. Provided, just like a rooster, he gets unlimited sex with the job. I’m just sayin’.)

Rather than let the rooster meet his maker, I stepped between the hawk and his target. The hawk didn’t see me as a threat and aimed to make a run inches below my armpit. I made a pathetic wimpy squealing sound when I realized this. Half in defense of the rooster and half wondering what talons could do to a grown man, I started waving my arms and shouting. The hawk banked hard and circled an arm’s breadth away. The rooster, brave but not stupid, hauled ass around me too.

We did three rotations like that. Rooster scampering like death was after him. Death orbiting me in a real life demonstration of flying prowess. Me waving my arms and gibbering like an idiot.

I’d become the hub of a wild and flapping universe of chaos. This would not do. It was time to use that monkey brain of mine and disrupt things.

On the third spin I jumped directly into the path of the orbiting hawk. The hawk barely managed to avoid crashing into my stomach. It flapped away to park on a fencepost thirty feet away. I’d thoroughly pissed it off. My only thought was that it hadn’t hooked my gut with a talon. Lucky me!

It glared at me. I glared back. The rooster was safely behind me so it squawked and glared at everyone. We had achieved détente.

More in my next post…

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Despite Evidence To The Contrary, I Am Not Crazy (Part III)

Posted on October 8, 2012 

The hawk clearly intended to out wait the brave rooster and it’s imbecilic owner. After a few minutes I sprinted to the woodpile to grab a weapon. The instant I moved the hawk took flight. The chase was on again! The rooster squawked louder and sprinted for the safety of the truck. I grabbed a piece of firewood and hurled it. The log landed close enough to the hawk to make him call off the attack. Whew!

By now the hawk was on a closer fencepost; less than ten feet away. The rooster was under the truck but still sounding his alarm. (As if there was a hen left in the county that wasn’t hiding by now.) The dog in the house was trying to tear the wall down to rescue us all. A nearby barn cat was fast asleep. (Cats! They exist to piss me off!)

The hawk took flight and cruised around the back of the barn. I ran for the house to get my shotgun. I had no intention of shooting the hawk (I like their grace and there’s probably a million laws protecting them anyway). I just wanted to use the timeless and undeniable argument that is understood by everyone; “run like hell because I’ve got my boomstick!”

By the time I got back one of our turkeys was flapping across the yard with the hawk hot on it’s trail. All I could think was; “You’ve got to be kidding me!” The turkey was massive compared to the hawk. Our free range turkeys are sweet critters with the disposition of a kitten. Unfortunately they’ve got the brain of a cueball and the grace of a thrown brick. When chased by a hawk it went from clumsy to utterly unhinged. It was careening into the fence, the truck, tree trunks, and everything else. The hawk followed closely but hesitated here and there. I guessed that it had no idea what it would do if it actually caught a turkey over five times its size. The turkey, if it had a brain (which they don’t) could probably have turned around and eaten it.

The hawk, letting logic overcome bloodlust, realized the turkey was out of his league and veered toward the cat. Awesome!

Unfortunately the cat got with the program and shot off like lightning. It zoomed over the woodpile and straight up a tree. The hawk thought better of the cat and jetted toward my truck’s bumper where the rooster was still carrying on.

I tried to find a spot where nothing was in the way. It wasn’t easy since the whole lawn was in chaos. Then I noticed the block of firewood lying on the grass.

Boom! I scored a direct hit on immobile firewood. That got everyone’s attention!

The turkey let out a sound exactly like Gilbert Godfrey having a heart attack. The cat poofed up like an exploding dustmop and practically tried to chew it’s way into the tree. The rooster (inexplicably) left the safety of the truck and chased after the turkey. The dog in the house let out a war cry that could make paint peel. The hawk came to a screeching halt mid-air and briefly hovered while trying to decide what the hell to do next.

I racked the slide and fired again. Boom! You’ve got to double tap blocks of wood… you don’t want one coming back to life and getting’ ya!

That did it! The turkey, cat, and rooster were long gone. The hawk, having changed course against all laws of physics, was airborne but with no momentum. It was flapping hard to get moving. It really wanted to be somewhere else.

I racked the slide again. The firewood was doomed and I was just wasting ammo for fun. The hawk had learned the meaning of boomstick and was desperate to get out of Dodge. It did an emergency jettison of extra baggage by taking an impressively huge crap. If it had flapped any harder it would have turned itself inside out.

I spared the firewood for no other reason than ammo ‘aint free and I was impressed by the hawk’s speed dump. Two seconds later the hawk had cleared the trees and was aiming to break the sound barrier. I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t stop for a hundred miles. It was clearly headed for somewhere safer, like Jupiter.

I’d literally scared the crap out of it!!! At the moment this seemed like the greatest feat ever accomplished in the entire history of mankind. I let out a hearty laugh. The cat (apparently stuck in the tree) made a pitiful sound. This only made me laugh harder.

It took a good minute or two to stop laughing. Then I picked up the wood (which had given it’s life for the cause!) and tossed it in the forest. I don’t need lead melting into my firebox.

It had been crazy but none of the animals got hurt. (The block of wood gets posthumous honors for making the ultimate sacrifice.) It had been a close shave. The rooster lost a few feathers but seemed to think he saved the day. The hawk will probably keep flying until it’s in another time zone. The cat (to my dismay) eventually came down from the tree. The turkey, having no brain at all, immediately forgot what had just happened and begged for treats. The hens came out a few minutes later. The dog hadn’t actually destroyed the house but it sure tried. Also, for no reason whatsoever, the dog seems to have the opinion that this was all caused by the turkey. (Which is why the dog has a future in politics.)

Everything I did made sense but it had been weird. It’s precisely why I shouldn’t have neighbors.