Part two - run for your life!

So where was I? Oh yes, there I was in the Don River valley, walking along one of the trails with Muggle (might have forgotten to mention Muggle in the last post). Stephen and I generally walk the dogs together, but if he’s working and Muggle starts getting psychotic (launching herself from the kitchen counter onto the TV ninja-style), I’ll take her out by myself. I used to be able to walk both her and Dobby together, but once Dobby discovered the squirrels, she started pulling on the lead so hard that one day she pulled me right off my feet. Which wouldn’t have been too bad if Muggle hadn’t spotted the river and pulled me in the exact opposite direction at that exact moment, so that I ended up lying on the ground crucifixion-style, hanging onto two dogs. I now understand why being pulled apart like that was considered a really cool form of torture in the middle ages.

 

 

 

Hmmm, wonder if that’s where chiropractics began?

But I digress.

I was walking along the trail with Muggle, marvelling at the beauty of the day, when there was a loud crack to my right, a large bush snapped aside and a huge figure materialised. It all happened in a split second, and I only saw the figure out of the corner of my eye, but it was big and coming directly at me.

It’s amazing how the mind and body work under these conditions. I know some people who are literally paralysed with fright under these circumstances and can not move for love nor money. My mind generally does a weird Matrix-type manoeuvre, and my thoughts will diverge into a multiple-choice set-up in which I think each thought very clearly and consider each option simultaneously. Which sounds pretty cool, but which is very, very annoying.

These are the things that went through my mind at that split-second:

1. Oh. My. God. It’s the crazy guy that’s been killing people and chopping them up and running around Ontario, scattering body parts like confetti. He seems to like hands particularly. I should be safe then. I don’t have very pretty hands. Unless he cuts them off because they’re ugly and he’s offended by them. Then I’m in shit.

2. If he says, “Hello Clarice”, I can just tell him it’s a case of mistaken identity. Hopefully he’ll step back into the bushes and wait for Jodie, and I can be on my way.

 

 

3. Muggle will save me! Bwaa ha ha, I’m so funny! Muggle will not save me. Unless her rolling over and peeing herself will distract him or make him point and laugh. In which case, we can buy some time. But I’ll have to carry her while I’m running and that will slow us down. Who am I kidding? I can’t run and carry Muggle. I can even carry Muggle. I’ll have to drag her. Why didn’t we get a smaller dog? Or a hamster. It would have been way easier to escape a psychopath with a hamster! That sentence’s structure needs to be relooked at. It makes it sounds like the psychopath has the hamster, not me. Oh my God, what’s wrong with me? Assessing sentence structure as I’m probably about to be murdered!

4.  Should I run at him? That might throw him off. He’s probably used to women running away, so this could gain me some advantage. Do the unexpected! Use the element of surprise! Never let them take you to the second location! Who said that? Oprah? Ah man, I love Oprah.

There were a few more thoughts, but I can’t remember them now. So, I decided to go with the element of surprise. I turned to launch myself at my attacker, let go of Muggle’s lead, yelled, “Run Muggle! Run! Don’t let him get your hands!”  and came eyeball to eyeball with a big-ass deer. Who, by the looks of it, was thinking:

1. What the HELL is this crazy-assed bitch think she’s doing coming all up in MY face with THAT attitude?

2. She’s telling the dog not to let me get its hand. Dogs do not have hands. Oh. My. God. She is the crazy person killing people in Ontario and collecting hands. She’s making the dog hide the evidence!

3. I think I will run away from her and crap as I’m doing it. That will probably slow her down. I think she’s after my hooves. Bitch is not gonna get these hooves. They were half-off at the Jimmy Choo sale.

So the deer does an about turn and bounds off through the trees, leaving nothing but deer poop in its wake. Which I briefly consider collecting in Muggle’s cute little bright pink poop bags. Not because I’m cleaning up after the deer, you understand (the signs in Toronto don’t say: “Keep your deer on a lead” and “Please clean up after your deer”), but because this will be evidence of my encounter.  To show our neighbour Jaryd who said the deers were urban myths.

But then I realise that would be weird. And also Muggle has found a new route into the river, and is starting to do backstroke towards the ducks, which will end badly for all concerned. I turn and watch the deer run away from me, and think: I hope it blogs about me.