Today’s Random Prompt: Have you ever been attacked by an animal?
A few years ago, my wife and I joined two other couples on a trip to Gatlinburg, TN. That lovely community in the Appalachian Mountains is known for, among other things, bears wandering through the woods and stumbling occasionally into parking lots, yards, and front porches.
The VRBO cabin we stayed in actually had a brochure about what to do when encountering a bear.
The other five members of our vacation party, including my usually sensible wife, were all looking forward to seeing a real, live, wild bear. I tried to remind them all that bears are apex predators and despite the fact that I can run faster than the rest of them, I did not want to see a bear.
We did not see a bear.
When I was in grade school, I was allowed to ride my bike around my neighborhood, which was the Senior High/Bacon Park area of Poplar Bluff, because it was the Seventies and kids were allowed to do things for which today’s parents would recoil in horror if such things were considered.
(This is why Gen-X can survive literally anything that happens, btw.)
At the end of the road that ran along the side of my house (Rosedale Lane for PB peeps) was a local attorney who owned a large, white German Shepherd named “Barabbas.”
I’m not fucking kidding. Barabbas. As in, “Crucify Jesus, give us Barabbas!”
For reasons unknown (other than more circumstantial Gen-X survival skills), this motherfucking dog was on the loose more often than not, and as I rode down the hill toward the murder dog’s house, I would hear him bark before I saw him, which was my signal to pedal as fast as I could.
The sonofabitch never caught me, but to this day, I hate that fucking dog’s guts. I can only assume he's currently in Hell commiserating with his namesake.
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