21 thoughts on “the cat lady raps”

1. Joke’s on her–doesn’t she know the YouTube geeks were delivered by c-section?

2. AHA! That totally explains it. I am thinking of making a speculative remark regarding vagina-avoidance and C-section births, but am not sure about the origins of some of my friends, so will keep it to myself.

   Why did your wife call the cops on the wild horses, by the way? Were they rowdy?

3. Well who else do you call when a dozen horses are meandering about on a blind curve on the highway at midnight? I suspect that had I been driving we would have hit one to three of them.

   We have called the various animal control agencies (daytime, Mon-Sat, 9-5), the SPCA (same), and the cops for all sorts of animals: Bears, horses, dogs, deer … for various reasons. No-one ever comes, and when they do the consequences are tragic.

   Last week’s bear may have been the one that was shot about a block from here. Crime: having a mum too stupid to tell it not to play with the humans.

   The horses I think had wandered off the Res. Someone had to take care of them before they turned into a three-car-four-horse pile-up.

   Of course we also stayed until they’d gotten off the road, trying to slow the traffic.

   Horses and Pit Bulls and bears, oh my!

   But we rarely get seagulls.

4. I’m going to say this slowly.

   You. Live. In. Ca. Na. Da.

   There are an estimated 300 wild horses in the Okanagan. Yes, they are a traffic hazard. They are also a given, as they have been for over a century. It’s like calling the cops on moose in Ontario.

   If no-one ever comes, or if, when they do, “the consequences are tragic,” then perhaps it’s a good idea to stop calling them. Shooing horses off the road like you did was a practical, effective solution to the problem.

5. Welll, you don’t see that every day . . . (insert your favorite punch line here)

6. The, ahem, lady seems to have a problem with self-igniting fudfarts….

   STB

7. Um–it’s not practical and effective. There’s a reason we don’t allow horses on highways, and the reason is something to do with the increase in cardiac incidents when one comes around a corner on a tarmac road built for cars, mark you, and finds oneself staring a flanks in every direction.

   Mme and I threaded between two horses and stopped just barely in time to avoid killing the one in front of us. Then we had to park hazardously on the shoulder while I tried to persuade them to leave, and scant bloody notice they took. Had it been ten PM vice eleven I suspect there would have been at least one horse shot, but only after the pile-up.

   These weren’t wild horses, they were sloppily-penned ones. By rights I should have rounded them up and “liberated” them. I know many people who’d pay not just a pretty penny but a downright gorgeous dollar for them.

   Although with the recent outlawing of horsemeat in the States (heroic legislation indeed!) the demand’s dropped a bit.

8. OMG you had to park? How fucking dangerous is that; your heart must have been in your throat.

   Where did you grow up? Surely you lived somewhere, sometime, that had either wild animals or farm animals, right? So you know the procedure? I’m pretty citified, as perhaps you’ve noticed, but I have actually worked on farms in such a situation and know if they’re tame horses you call the nearest farmer you know and make it his problem; all local farmers know ALL local livestock, and they have an informal telephone tree for just such occasions. If you don’t know any farmers, you’re considered tourists still and no responsibility attaches to you, although stopping at the next farmhouse and saying “are those your horses” is considered courteous.

   I’ve also lived where you could see lots of wild animals fairly regularly. I’ve seen wild horses in BC. And I know if the horses are wild (ie they are both loose and unbranded/unmicrochipped) you may legally round them up under certain circumstances, provided you can keep them properly fed, watered, and grazed. But you’ll need a bigger yard.

   You’ll note that in neither case is calling the police the go-to action plan. I’m trying hard to resist the temptation to categorize you with the Woody Allen types who define the outdoors as the part between the taxi and the door, like the guy in the Hamptons who phoned police to report a golden eagle was attacking his wife. Turned out it was a Rhode Island Red.
   Don’t be that guy.
   If they’re wild horses you treat them like elk.

9. Elk one does not typically keep in paddocks. That’s because they are wild animals, just like these horses weren’t. These horses were allowed to ramble out of somone’s pasture because some numbnuts left the gate open.

   But I did, alas, grow up without manure betwixt my toes, and was not aware of the handy tree phone. So when I saw livestock trying to become deadstock on the road, my reaction was to try and take a little responsibility. The @$$#0!3 thing to do would have been to drive on and let someone else kill them.

   Instead we parked on the shoulder of a blind corner (popular site for accidental deaths–and yes, my heart wasn’t in my mouth exactly, but it made a start up my oesophagus) and sat there flashing lights at traffic while I tried to persuade them that the grass really is greener on the inside of the fence, which they eventually figured out.

   I called the cops because I wasn’t about to sit there and babysit the damn great hayburners all night. While I know some farmers (you’re surely aware of what Mme does on weekends?) I don’t know any farmers to call at that hour. The nearest residence was up the Reservation Road and if you think I’m going to go ’round the reservation knocking on random doors at bloody eleven o’clock at night you need your meds upped.

   I disliked the thought of them dying uneccessarily because their owner can’t figure out how to latch a gate. So in the absence of any other agency I called the police.

   Consultation with Barb–with whom you curried favour last visit–reveals that in fact this incident is not uncommon, due to the irresponsibility of the animals’ owners, and that the actions I took were correct. So nyeah.

   Why are you busting my chops here anyway? Are you pissed because we didn’t collect one for you?

10. No, I just think it’s hilarious that you made a typically nebbishy and citified overreaction.

    How were the actions you took correct? Even if the cops didn’t make fun of you they didn’t do anything.

    I’m trying to understand what happened here, but the story keeps shifting.

    Was there a fence/gate involved in the incident that you saw with your own eyes? Did you herd the horses inside the fenced field or not? If you did, was there a gate, or did you just encourage them to jump it? If there was, did you close it? If you did, did you tie it shut with something? If not, why not? Presumably there are stringy weeds there. If so, how did this not solve the problem, necessitating the intervention of the authories? If there was a gate and you did not close it, why not? If there was a fenced field and no gate, why are you claiming that you put them in the field?

11. Darling, these were horses. Quit trying to get my goat. You’re just being bitchy now.

    Why are you bleating on about horses in a post about pussies anyway? Or possibly wildcats?

    In fact, for someone who criticizes Aussies for their proclivity to provoking animals you’re exhibiting a nasty inclination to jump the shark here. You need to lay off, chick. I know you’re an eager beaver, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. Obviously you’ve been drinking like a fish–you should take it easy, you’re no spring chicken, y’know.

    I’m sure you’re just trying to establish the pecking order, but it sticks in my craw when you flounder around like that. To me it’s just so much water off a duck’s back if you’ve got ants in your pants. In two shakes of a lamb’s tail you could be happy as a clam, but you’re a real bear today, trying to change horses in mid-stream. You should be careful–never look a gift horse in the mouth and keep in mind that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

    Just remember, too, that there are plenty of fish in the sea. I’m a free bird, and what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch ‘cos one day it’ll be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Your bark may be worse than your bite, but remember, sometime the chickens’ll come home to roost. And you can wait around ’till the cows come home, but you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

    Or possibly it’s too late to lock the gate after the horses have bolted.

    I’m dog-tired of this beastly discussion. Let’s start something more interesting in another part of your cow-meant section.

12. Stop calling the cops on livestock and I’ll stop laughing at you. Simple.

    I note that when pressed for specifics, you resort to ad hominem punning. I detect a closet Tory.

13. Now, Madam, you have gone too far!

    I challenge you to a duel.

    Swords at fifty paces!

    And I resort to ad bestiam punning when I’m bored with this weird obsession you have with barnyard animals–which are different from highway animals in that they’re neither flat nor splatter-y. See the diff?

14. Stalling…stalling…stallling. Which is appropriate, since you’re stalling about…

    horses.

    Were they wild or not? Did you put them in a field or not?

15. If the horses were stalled I could have given them a jump-start. But they were moving under their own power, and giving them a jumpstart might have just made them wild.

16. In which case they’d have been perfectly legal on the highway and you could have risked prosecution for molesting protected wildlife. Don’t make me call Greenpeace!

17. You related to these intrepid forest rangers, by any chance?

18. Hah! I just put that one into a piece on safety training. Favorite quote:

    “Holy moly—sounds to me like someone’s read too many of Grimm’s fairy tales.”

    And I called Greenpeace, but the Rainbow Warrior became becalmed on highway 3 while steaming up to help the horses.

19. It doesn’t use steam; very bad for the environment, all that burning for the steam. They’d have trekked up on the backs of llamas or hitch-hiked or sumpin. If the llamas were roping llamas, problem solved.

    Of course, some tourist would probably see a bunch of llamas and call the police.

20. And right they should too. Llamas are very dangerous. If you see them where people are swimming, you should shout: “Look out! There are llamas!”

21. Well I do that all the time anyway. Causes quite a stir on the #14 Hastings, I tell you.

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