Monday, May 25, 2009

Shhhh ... What Was That?

About two or three weeks ago I woke up at about 3 or so in the morning. I couldn't go back to sleep. Tossing and turning, I finally got out of bed and decided I'd get some household chores done before going to work.

The chore of my choice? Laundry. Doesn't sound like a big deal ... except we don't have a dryer. We hang all our clothes on the line to dry. So, there I was, in the pitch black darkness of the woods, hanging clothes up to dry. I took the dog out with me, and had him tethered right by me.

Anytime I go out in the early morning hours like that, my ears are very attuned to EVERY LITTLE SOUND. I'm always afraid a Mt. Lion will shoot out of the darkness and try to eat me. This isn't paranoia, this is reality. We have cat attacks on occasion up here, and dogs get picked off like Happy Meals for wild life.

So, there i was, hanging clothes on the line ... SNAP!! I swear I heard a twig break in the darkness. It could be a deer, an elk, or a mt. lion. I freeze, ears pricked ... silence. Nothing. I get back to my chore. Then I hear it ... the very distinct scream of an elk ... screaming, not bugling happily. And it kept screaming ... on and on and on. I grab the basket of clothes and the dog ... and RUN into the house.

Panicking, I wake up my s/o. I explain the whole story, and show her my hands ... they're shaking out of control!! Then, for some reason, I feel like I still need to finish hanging out the clothes. So I ask her to come with me so I won't be alone. She drags herself out of bed to go out with me ... the screaming silenced now ... and explains to me that if an elk was just taken down by a cat, the cat's too busy to be interested in me.

Thanks, honey.

THEN ... last night I got sucked into watching Monster Quest on the History Channel. They had back to back episodes about ... Bigfoot. Of course, one of the episodes goes on and on about how there have been Bigfoot sightings galore in ... COLORADO. They speculate that, since we have the largest elk population in the world, Bigfoot hunts elk ...

The question is ... Would I rather know that it was a cat ... or Bigfoot? I'll never know what happened ... and it probably was a cougar ... but that darned ol' imagination of mine is going CRAZY!!!

2 comments:

MJ said...

Girl go buy a dryer! Ray watches Monsterquest. He has seen that big foot story a number of times. He swears that he was chased by a big foot when he was little. I say too much weed as a teenager! He watched one night and I fell to sleep and dreamt I was being chased by the thing.

Jenn said...

i hate nights like that. I get major big time heebee jeeebies! It is too warm for you to have cabin fever... go dig a garden?