The Best Defense

I am an animal lover. I always have been, and I always will be. Since I can remember, I’ve been making “homes” for critters out of rocks, sticks, boxes, whatever I could find so they would have a cozy place to lay their weary heads. I’ve always had countless pets of every variety including, dogs, cats, ducks, chickens, turkeys, squirrels, opossums, rats, mice and snakes. I learned to love barn cats at an early age despite their lovely fits of biting and scratching, even though they were so cute and I was just absolutely convinced that there WAS enough Neosporin in the world to convince them to come home with me. I got to hold a baby raccoon once, and even let a monkey sit on my head. (It tried to eat my hair, but I let it live because it was cute) And of course everyone knows that animals can be a great defense for your families and homes, like making vicious guard dogs out of Dobermans and Chihuahuas. But what kind of sick person would use a dead creature as a defense mechanism?! I would, and I have! I didn’t kill the animals first, they were already dead, so please don’t go speed-dialing PETA or anything, and keep in mind that sometimes people can be so annoying that you have to resort to sick measures to get them away from you! Ok, make that one person in particular. She lived down the block from me and was annoying, and whiny, and even as an elementary school-aged kid, I couldn’t stand her!!! There are only a couple of isolated incidents where I used such a defense, but lets just say that sometimes a dead critter can be just as useful as a live one when you know it will strike fear into the heart of an unsuspecting person…. Or in my case, child. I’m not exactly sure of the year, but I was probably in the fifth or sixth grade the first time it happened. A friend of mine and I were playing volleyball in my front yard one evening, when out of the blue, little “Ashley” bitch face comes skipping down the block and wants to play. This girl was awful. She was a few years younger than us and was a known nuisance who would run to mommy for every single offense, real or imaginary, who would in-turn demand humiliating apologies for her “Precious baby.” Gag!! Anyway, my friend, who we will call “Anne“, and I kind of looked at each other like, “Are you fucking kidding me? No way in hell!” Just then I remembered that before we had even started to play, I had spotted a dead bat in my yard. They were known to fly around, and it being such a small town it was common to see them around sunset. This one, for whatever reason, had chosen my front yard as it’s everlasting place of rest. At first site, the grotesque little creature held no value and we were far too grossed out by it’s stiff, lifeless body to touch it. But now a certain golden opportunity presented itself to free us from our unwanted companion, and I was just sick enough to know what to do. While “Anne” distracted the little bitch, (I often now refer to children as “little bitches” so this is an absolutely normal term of endearment) I managed to pick up the dead bat between two sticks, and while half pretending to be sickened at finding it’s corpse so near to where we were standing, proceeded to “take it to the trash.” Well, I’m sure you’ve guessed by now that this isn’t what happened. Wouldn’t you know that while walking directly passed “Ashley“, I “accidentally” tripped and flung that little dead bat directly into her fearful and unsuspecting self, striking her in the middle of the chest. With a flurry of screams and flailing arms she bolted from my yard like lightening to run home to mommy, while “Anne” and I collapsed into a fit of laughter and a very fake, half -yelled apology of “I’m sorry, I tripped!” I wish I could say that this was the only time I resorted to such a disgusting act of snobbery, but I would be a liar. I honestly can’t remember if it was later that same day or another time, but it just so happened that “Anne” and I were hanging out again, as we so often did back then, and decided to go for a walk. While walking passed “Ashley’s” house, we discovered a dead garter snake lying in the street. Now I’m not one to make absurd accusations here, but am I the only one that finds it strange that dead animals followed in the wake of this girls existence? Anti-Christ child maybe? Who knows. All I know is I saw a very simple math equation in front of me: 1 dead snake+ 1 open back yard trampoline= two giddy little girls, delighted at the thought of this brat discovering her worst nightmare while going out to play. Long story short, I picked the dead snake up by the tail and threw it onto her trampoline, doing so with the complete knowledge of the depth of this girls fear and hatred of all things that slither. After making it a few blocks into our walk, “Anne” and I got the justification we were eagerly waiting for. Our conversation had suddenly been cut short by a violent and guttural scream. We knew. She had found it and our plan of terrorizing her had succeeded. This was later confirmed, as after our walk, and “Anne” had gone home, I was walking back to my own house when I passed by “Ashley’s” again and discovered the snake was back out on the street. And wouldn’t you know, me being the sweet, angelic child that I was, just wanting that little snake to have a final comforting resting place, picked it up and threw it back onto that trampoline, then continued happily home. I have to say now, that even though I haven’t used this type of technique as an adult, it proved itself to be useful and effective . I’m not ruling anything out here, but if you know you’re annoying, and you happen to be in my general vicinity, it might be a wise choice to take notice of your surroundings and any possible creature corpses that could, and most likely would, be used against you. J