Simultaneously Adorable and Disturbing

This morning, as I drove the Ghettomobile to work (Now people, you know I'm the least-likely individual in the world to refer to something as "ghetto" without cause...This car? Is GHET-TO. LJ and one of his friends went halfsies on it for $500 apiece, figuring they could share it and use it as an emergency spare car. It's got all the wiring for television and huge monster stereo and all kinds of gadgets...but the regular old radio? Doesn't work. It's got cruise control and power this-and-that...but the cover on the passenger airbag? Is about half pried-off. Same with the drivers' door--someone must have forgot their keys long ago, because the doorframe has dings all along the top edge, and the rubber gasket around the door is compromised. Plus it's rusty on the outside and grimy on the inside and drives like a buffalo, even though it's a small car. Anyway, LJ is going out of town this weekend (thank heavens!) and he's taking the truck (booo) so I got to drive the Ghettomobile to work for the first time today. And I have no qualms, after that, referring to this car as "ghetto".)

Anyway, as I was driving down Cicero Avenue--a major thoroughfare, for you non-Chicagoans; three lanes in each direction, 40-mph speed limit, lots of retail on all sides--I came to the Target parking lot. And there, walking along the sidewalk near the newly-landscaped shrubs, I saw two very big Canada geese. Now, geese are becoming common enough in the city and suburbs as to constitute a very big problem--mainly because they insist upon dropping their gigantic goose-doots in every open field--and plus they have a well-deserved reputation as being some nasty little buggers. (I am still emotionally scarred by a childhood contre-temps with a petting-zoo goose. Don't they check those animals out for temperament before they throw them in the petting zoo? A VICIOUS little bastard, he was.)

So geese, as such, even walking down Cicero Avenue, are at best a minor novelty. But what really messed me up was this: behind them, there followed a string of six small, fluffy yellow goslings. I mean, it was like something straight out of a storybook--leading the way, the proud momma goose (or daddy; I don't know whether geese are patriarchical, but in the mood I've been in lately it wouldn't surprise me) followed by the fluffy babies and then the other parent, bringing up the rear. It was absolutely adorable...

...except that it was on Cicero Avenue, and since I drive that street every day, I know how people drive there. And the people who drive on Cicero with me? Are even bigger jerks than that long-ago petting-zoo goose. I would imagine that at least a couple of them, faced with a storybook parade of geese and goslings trying to cross a busy thoroughfare, would think "Hey! Fifty points for each baby!" and aim their SUV's accordingly. And I really didn't want to think about that--it's bad enough facing the carnage in my neighborhood, a crossing of paths between people who don't keep their cats indoors and people who drive like maniacs. I would hate to see that fate befall those little balls of yellow fuzz. (And yes, I know---those fluff-balls will grow up into hissing, doot-dropping, human-pecking bastards someday. But I am wired incorrectly when it comes to baby animals. You can confront me with all the logic in the world, and I will acknowledge your logic and condemn my own hypocrisy--but any appeal to reason will be drowned out by that vestigial "awwwwwww...." that bubbles up when faced with small adorable animals. I know it's girly and stupid and in many cases contrary to logic, but I can't help it. They're CUTE, dammit.)

When I got to work I called the Bedford Park police department, who told me there was really nothing they could do except send out a unit to stop traffic if the geese decided they wanted to cross the road. I was hoping for a solution more along the lines of "pick them up and take them somewhere safe", but apparently that's not the correct protocol--too many geese, for one thing, and not enough places to take them.

So if you were driving along Cicero Avenue in Bedford Park this morning, and you got caught in a goose-related traffic jam, I apologize; I just didn't want anything to happen to them while they were still little and cute. And if you were the Bedford Park officer detailed with waiting around all morning to see if the geese were going to want to cross Cicero Avenue...well, I'm sorry for putting you in that position--but it was probably a better way to spend a Friday morning in May than sitting at a desk doing paperwork, now wasn't it?