Bull Wit

June 8, 2008

Hael and I are walking to the Tuck Shop for soda and onions when we spot a bull 50 yards in front of us. Almost instinctively, we both stop moving and take a minute to gape at this beast. It one of the largest animals I have ever seen and is jet black balancing two enormous yellow horns. From tip to tail the animal stretches the full width of the car lane in which it has so inconveniently positioned itself.

Although there are people milling about on either side of the road and bull turns to stare at us for an uncomfortably long moment. We giggle nervously and then frantically as the bull starts heading towards us. A woman selling candy and oranges on the side of the road smirks and leans back in her plastic chair to be entertained by our terror. Undoubtedly, she has also noticed the peril of our garments: by some freak coincidence we are both wearing bright red t-shirts.

What develops is a type of erratic dance that has us running and stopping, grabbing onto one another’s arms and acting more “girlish” than should ever be allowed for two 20-something women. Eventually we compose ourselves and make a plan to walk behind a nearby fence that will separate us from the bull and dump us out a bit further down the road and past the beast.

We watch the bull closely while following the length of the fence. Towards the end I have begun to feel relief but Hael shrieks: the fence is enclosed and we have now been caged into a pen. When we look back we see that the bull has decided to enter the corral behind us. Although we see him peacefully sniffing at the grass, the sense of entrapment throws us into a state of panic anyway. We toss our bags over the fence and scan for an escape route. Hael starts to climb but the barbed wire forces her to stop. We then scale pile of cinderblocks in the corner of the pen but they are too far from the fence to help us climb over.

Perhaps a full minute passes before we are able to locate a part of the fence that has been broken and is shallow enough for us to exit through. We toss our bags and scurry through the opening.

Half a mile later we’re laughing hysterically at ourselves but still looking over our shoulder to make sure the bulls is safely out of sight.

I can only imagine the story our Little Orange Lady tells around the dinner table tonight.