THE GOOSE GAUNTLET
Sep. 7th, 2025 08:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marcicatIt's raining today (finally, hooray!), so this story is actually from my Friday walk. There's a local cemetery that's popular for walking, and (at certain times of year) also popular with geese. So I wasn't entirely surprised to start down one of the roads and see a couple geese on one side, even when I realized it was actually four geese.
Best goose advice: AVOID THE GEESE
I know this advice. I love this advice! But the cemetery geese are usually pretty chill, and this isn't gosling season, so I figured 'hey, the geese are all off the road on the left, I'll just swing wide to the right and we'll all be cool about this.' That would have left a comfortable 10-15 feet between me and the geese. Not enough distance to outrun them if they decided to really go at me, but enough to put that option in the Very Unlikely category.
And then two of the geese started to cross the road. (Note: it's a looooong straight road, so I had a long time to watch this disaster unfolding.) Still, I thought 'no problem, all the geese are going to cross the road, and then I'll swing wide to the left instead, and we'll all be cool about this.'
Except ONLY two geese crossed the road. And then there were geese on both sides!
That's really the point that I should have turned around and just gone back the other way. (See: best goose advice)
But I did not turn around. I was pretty close to them already by that point, and everything had been fine so far, right? I slowed down, trying my best to look non-threatening and chill. There was, optimistically, still 6-8 feet of clearance between me and each pair of geese. I thought 'this is fine, we're all fine here.'
And then one of the geese on the right started hissing. One of the geese on the left started making an even scarier sound, like a growl (I know geese can't growl, but I'm not sure this goose knew that). ALL the geese were looking at me. I quickly moved from 'I really don't want to have to explain this choice at the emergency room' to 'genuinely fearing imminent goose attack,' but by that point it seemed quicker to keep going than to turn back, so that's what I did.
By the grace of the small-town cemetery gods, I emerged unscathed from the GOOSE GAUNTLET, with a story to tell and a significantly stronger commitment to following the Best goose advice: AVOID THE GEESE.
Best goose advice: AVOID THE GEESE
I know this advice. I love this advice! But the cemetery geese are usually pretty chill, and this isn't gosling season, so I figured 'hey, the geese are all off the road on the left, I'll just swing wide to the right and we'll all be cool about this.' That would have left a comfortable 10-15 feet between me and the geese. Not enough distance to outrun them if they decided to really go at me, but enough to put that option in the Very Unlikely category.
And then two of the geese started to cross the road. (Note: it's a looooong straight road, so I had a long time to watch this disaster unfolding.) Still, I thought 'no problem, all the geese are going to cross the road, and then I'll swing wide to the left instead, and we'll all be cool about this.'
Except ONLY two geese crossed the road. And then there were geese on both sides!
That's really the point that I should have turned around and just gone back the other way. (See: best goose advice)
But I did not turn around. I was pretty close to them already by that point, and everything had been fine so far, right? I slowed down, trying my best to look non-threatening and chill. There was, optimistically, still 6-8 feet of clearance between me and each pair of geese. I thought 'this is fine, we're all fine here.'
And then one of the geese on the right started hissing. One of the geese on the left started making an even scarier sound, like a growl (I know geese can't growl, but I'm not sure this goose knew that). ALL the geese were looking at me. I quickly moved from 'I really don't want to have to explain this choice at the emergency room' to 'genuinely fearing imminent goose attack,' but by that point it seemed quicker to keep going than to turn back, so that's what I did.
By the grace of the small-town cemetery gods, I emerged unscathed from the GOOSE GAUNTLET, with a story to tell and a significantly stronger commitment to following the Best goose advice: AVOID THE GEESE.
