Thursday, September 25, 2008

Javelina attack!

I'm putting the food and drink-based articles on hold for today, because I want to write about something that happened to me the other morning on my way to work at my new job.
I was recently hired by a local donut shop, and work mornings. By mornings, I mean 4 AM (usually). Well, since I don't drive, I have to leave my house around 3:30 AM and bike the whole way there, which is about three miles.
There are absolutely no cars out on weekdays around this time, so I was riding my bike in the middle of the road to avoid getting randomly attacked by coyotes or something (for those of you that don't know, I live in Arizona, so it isn't out of the question). Well, I had my headphones in, and was listening to "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay, when something caught my eye in the bush-filled median that divides the left and right lanes. I turn around and see ten of these things chasing after me:

This is called a javelina. They are incredibly violent feral pigs that are known to ram people for no apparent reason. They weigh anywhere from 40 to 90 pounds, so this isn't exactly something to joke around about. There were six adults and four babies hiding in the bushes, and they were about to cross the road when I passed.
Now, I was going downhill and was in a hurry, so these things had absolutely no chance of catching up with me. In fact, I'm 99% positive that they were just protecting their young ones, and they did a good job of it. I was scared shitless. If they would have knocked me off of my bike, I would have probably been seriously injured or killed by them. I can see the headline now: "TEENAGER, 18, KILLED BY WILD PIGS WHILE BIKING TO DONUT SHOP." Can you think of a more embarassing way to die?
This is exactly why nature scares me sometimes.

1 comment:

Derrick said...

Lol, I almost didn't catch the sarcasm.