Recently I was driving home from a date with Ryan and it was quite late. Like the gentleman he is, Ryan stayed on the phone with me the whole time to make sure I got home safely. I had a lengthy drive through the forest on country roads before I'd make it home and Ryan was doing an admirable job of both entertaining and flirting with me.
As we're talking and joking, a truck passes me in a no passing zone. My designs to rant to Ryan about the discourteous lout who clearly has no respect for the law were cut short, however, when I realize that in the back of the truck is a moose.
"WHAT THE?!" I yelled.
Ryan, suddenly concerned replies, "What the what? Is everything okay?"
"I just got passed by a truck..."
"Okay...?" he says, waiting for cause for sudden yelling.
"THERE IS A MOOSE IN THE BACK OF THE TRUCK!"
Ryan laughs and says "Well, you are in the country and it IS hunting season..."
That may have been true, but the part that was so shocking to me is that the moose was standing upright in the bed of the truck.
"No, Ry...it's just a moose, standing up in the back!"
"Is it stuffed?"
"I can't really....OH MY GOD. Ryan...I JUST MOVED ITS HEAD. It's ALIVE! THese people have a full grown moose tied into the back of their truck!"
Ryan and I were both absolutely shocked, wondering what on earth could possibly make someone think having a live moose in the back of their truck was a good idea. Then, of course, we had to speculate on how someone could coax a moose into the truck and keep in there while they tied it down! As I'm driving behind these people, and we're positing situations in which this scenario is even remotely logical, I see flashing lights behind me. "Oh, man..." I say to Ryan. "There are cops! I"m not even speeding!"
I pull over and wait for, but the cop zips around me and pulls back in behind the guys with the moose. The people in the truck didn't pull over right away; perhaps the bulk of the moose was preventing them from seeing the flashing lights? Maybe the antlers were also blocking the mirrors? I don't know, but I imagine the conversation inside the cab of that truck went "Whatever he says, just reply, 'what moose, officer?'" That, or, "Dude...how do we explain this?!"
At any rate the truck eventually pulls over. They're under one of the only two street lights along my route home and they have the kindness in them to pull over under the streetlight so I CAN GAWK! I slow down and roll down my window so I can take a picture with my phone. The cop, standing behind the truck and shaking his head, leans over as I'm trying to snap a pic of the moose and says, "Weird, huh? Move along...just...move along."
Stay tuned for Animal Farm, part 2!
