With the exception of zoos and various theme parks, animals back home generally maintain a respectful distance between what they consider to be their habitat, and what we consider to be ours.
As is the case with just about everything here, this is not back home.
Driving (or walking) through the streets brings you to within spitting distance of cows, chickens, dogs, sheep, and donkeys. Normally they just ignore us, or stop their aimless wandering in quiet deference to our ability to accidentally run them over if they aren't careful.
Other times, narrow roads and stupid animals lead to hilarious consequences. Once, while driving on a small dirt road in an even smaller, dirtier town, a couple of cows were just off the embankment as we wheeled by. One of them just lost it and utterly freaked out. Spastically it started running for its life to get away, but the combination of the narrow road and the fact that it was, in fact, a cow didn't allow it more than three feet of leeway in front of us. I was in the lead vehicle and couldn't help cracking up at this cow, frightened to death and convinced that this giant armored vehicle was chasing it down the road. Eventually he found just enough room to move off to the side, skeptically staring at the rest of the convoy rolling past his new sanctuary.
Perhaps not quite as funny overall, but undoubtedly more frequent, are what I call the suicidal donkeys. With every mounted patrol come encounters with the local donkey population, perhaps only slightly smaller in numbers than the local people population. For reasons completely beyond my understanding these donkeys will invariably run directly in front of our vehicles and come to a halt. I have seen donkeys lying peacefully on the side of the road a quarter mile from us, and then just as we reach them they stand up and move right into the path of our oncoming trucks. And stand there.
Maybe they somehow realized that they are donkeys, and even worse, they are donkeys in Iraq. Maybe they just can't take another day and want it all to be over. Whatever it is, it's happened too many times for me to consider it coincidence, which if you know me, you know I don't believe in anyway.
To date we have not obliged any of these suicidal donkeys. If we have to be here, so do they.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Dumb Asses
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10 comments:
Good post today! Appropriately titled for sure!Those donkeys are living up to their name! Maybe that should be "down" to their name?
Even millions of years from now those donkeys will not walk upright. Great post!
That was hysterical! The last line made me spew pepsi onto my computer screen. Hang in there and thanks for all you do.
I hear donkey is good eating.
Good read.
Keep it up!
Oh my boy ~ you are too funny!!! Great post..... and I am glad to see you have your incredibly good sense of humor still with you!
Love~
Mom
xoxox
zebra > corn
This is why the U.S. military needs to mount cowcatchers on all of its vehicles, regardless of their likelihood of running into cattle.
Donkey is the food of the desert… there’s donkey stew, donkey kabobs, donkey steak, donkey lo mien, fried donkey, broiled donkey, baked donkey, donkey cocktail, honey glazed donkey, barbeque donkey, braised donkey, smoked donkey, sauté donkey, pineapple donkey, donkey and potatoes, donkey gumbo, coconut donkey, lemon donkey, pan fried donkey, deep fried donkey, donkey salad, donkey burgers, donkey sandwich.
That’s about it.
Love the title.. too funny. Well they are either dumb or suicidal or both. Don't think it gets much worse than being a donkey in Iraq.
Hi Dave -
Friend of your Mom's (from work), here. She is so proud of you - I'm glad she's sharing your posts with us (Good post, by the way).
I'll be checking in from time to time to see how you're doing & to find out what's going on in the sand box.
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