Go ye not unto the Gravel Pit!

A week or so ago, it was pretty warm here. One night, around eleven, I opened my window to let cool air into my room. Then I settled into my bed to read more of King Hereafter (which, if anyone is interested, has improved). A half hour or so passed (in which time, if those interested before were planning to read the book solely on the basis of the character named Skeggi, I should tell you that Skeggi dies--sorry) Then, as I was contentedly reading, I heard, outside, something which seemed closely to resemble the sound of a lion killing a wildebeest. This not being the African savannah, that scenario seemed unlikely. Though my survival instincts were telling me that the correct reaction was to run and hide, or get out the machete, I heroically turned off all the lights and peered out the window.

Silence and a slight breeze. A zephyr, even, if you will. If my life was Jurassic Park, that’s when the hungry uber-predator would have smashed through the window, torn off my head, and drunk all of my spewing blood. (In my Jurassic Park, they apparently found the DNA of Grendel.) However, I ended up just going back to my book and forgetting about it for a while, and it was all very anti-climactic.

The next morning, my mother went for her routine walk with my dog when she heard the following sound (this is a quote from my mother): “Aroo-aroo-aroooooooo!” It sounds like Scooby-Doo is in trouble when I do it, but she, an infinitely more intelligent person, recognized it as the unmistakable call of a coyote. A coyote. One more time: coyote. She saw one of our neighbors and said, “I think there are coyotes in the gravel pit.” And he said, “I think so too.” And my brave dog, my fierce dog, The Mutilator, said: “Holy Mother Mary and Joseph, SAVE ME FROM THE THING THAT MAKES THE SCARY NOISE!” (The Mutilator is not religious but she has an excellent sense of verbal effect.)

The Mutilator then leapt into Shaggy’s arms.

My mother did not, however, relay this information to me until after dinner tonight, a week later. Let us review the information: there are hyenas . . . oh, excuse me, just coyotes . . . living in packs in the gravel pit across the street, planning a hostile takeover of our defenceless neighborhood, feasting on the flesh of the local wildebeest population. You might wonder whether there actually is a wildebeest population anywhere in the lower 48 excluding zoos. There is not. And I think we can rule out Alaska and Hawaii too. You might then wonder, as I wonder, what are they eating?

Says my mother, “Apparently they’ve been known to take small children and cats!”

She follows this up with, “Are you going to take the dog out?”

When the child-eaters get me, at least I will be remembered as the first casualty in the war between suburbia and the Wolf Platoon . . . I’m sorry, I meant Coyote . . .