Whoosh!

What’s on my mind? 

Hey, you! Lighten up! Your thoughts are in a negative loop. 

Yes, the virus sucks. Yes, this is a time for worry and sadness. Your inner adult knows that, but your inner child wants to rebel. Sorry, kid, that big anniversary party needs to wait. Unfortunately, honey, this isn’t the year to take that exotic vacation. If you don’t curb your impulses, that party or vacay may be the last you and those you love ever have.  

Yes, you still need to nurture your inner child, and yes, you still need to live your life, but do it safely. Learn to use video-chat ... Explore new hobbies … Return to old ones … Call a friend to ask: “Howya doin’?” … Donate to the food bank … There are plenty of ways to connect without actually “being there” in the time of COVID. Consider what works for you. Then do it!

I firmly believe most of us are dorks under the skin. We do and say unintended things that look and sound silly. There are glimmers of light even in a time of tragedy. There are times to shake your head and think: “Dork!” Look at yourself in the mirror. Lighten up! 

If you aren’t already doing it, smile at yourself - not in an “I’m such a useless person ...” way, but in a head-shaking, self-amused way. Get in touch with your feelings. Ask yourself: “Howya doin’?” If you can answer: “I’m doing the best I can” ... Give yourself permission to feel okay about that.

This health crisis will get better. But we all need to do our part - you, me, our families, our friends, our co-workers, our elected representatives … everyone.  

Turning the corner? Not yet. But we will if we all pull together ... Wear a mask. Keep a 6 ft. (2 m) distance ... Maintain your safe “bubble.” Wash your hands - often! Don’t attend large social gatherings - especially indoors. 

Being depressed, angry, sad, and scared is normal. I sometimes ride the same roller-coaster. Doing even a small good deed for someone else will lift your spirits. Kindness will help you cope. Finding the smile hidden under the sadness will make you feel better, even if momentarily.

Here’s a calming exercise to help in moments of crisis. Don’t rush through it. Don’t expect to master it immediately. Take your time. Trust me … It will help. It takes only a couple of minutes. Read it over until you “get it.” Then do it.

Turn off the TV. Set aside any distractions. Get comfortable on the couch or in your favorite quiet place. Use a pillow or a warm blanket if that helps.

Close your eyes. Empty your mind. Sit or lie quietly until you’re ready to do more. Your eyes are getting heavy. Close them. Focus on your breath. Nothing more. 

Breathe in through the nose, and WHOOSH! Out through the mouth … 

Focus on the slow rhythm of your breath. Slowly, slowly … 

In through the nose ... Out through the mouth …

Empty your mind. Your thoughts are floating away like soap bubbles. Hear them pop. Keep your eyes closed. Focus on your breath. Nothing more. 

In through the nose ... WHOOSH! Out through the mouth …

Nothing more. 

In through the nose ... Out through the mouth …

Focus on your breath.

In through the nose ... WHOOSH! 

Do this for two minutes. Open your eyes. If you feel it’s necessary, do it a little longer.

Rest. Remain in your comfortable sofa or chair. Listen to quiet, relaxing music. Calm your anxious mind. Things will get better.

Focus on your breath. 

In through the nose ... Out through the mouth … 

Done.

Do this again, the next time you feel stressed. Now get on with your life. A crisis is an event that doesn’t go on forever. This will not go on forever. Despite those dark clouds, the sun will shine again.

© Nicole Parton, 2020 

In Donald Trump’s World, Everything’s Fake News

What’s on my mind? 

The coronavirus hit 8,835,861 cases in the US earlier today. Actually, that’s no longer true. As I prepare to file this post at not quite 8:30 pm PST, worldometers.info reports the number of cases now stands at 9,120,751. The pandemic is increasing by 70,000 new US cases daily; by the Nov. 3 election, the daily tally is expected to hit 80,000. Nearly 1,000 Americans die of COVID-19 every day.

The US has had more than 500,000 new cases in the past week. To date, the pandemic has caused more than 227,409 American deaths - nearly four times the number of American soldiers who died or went missing as a result of the Vietnam war. By theelection, the virus will have killed nearly four times as many Americans as the number of American soldiers killed in battle during WW II.

In Donald Trump’s world, everything’s fake news. 

The US leads the world with the highest number of coronavirus cases and the total number of deaths-per-million.

In a late-September news story, The Washington Post reported that the number of US coronavirus deaths stood at 200,000. Trump’s reply: “It’s a shame.”  

A shame ... Death is just a number. Fill in the blank as the number rises. Death isn’t someone’s child, or granny, or uncle, or wife, or brother. It’s a number … Death is just a number. 

Trump’s view: “That’s all I hear about now. That’s all I hear. Turn on the television … ‘COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID.’ A plane goes down, 500 people dead, they don't talk about it … ‘COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID.’ By the way, on November 4 you won’t hear about it, anymore.”

In Donald Trump’s world, everything’s fake news.

All across the USA, you’ll find T-shirts and masks emblazoned F*CK FA*CI, HOAX, FAKE NEWS, DEFUND THE MEDIA, and MIND CONTROL. 

Politico, a reputable online news agency, this week reported that the Trump administration’s science policy office ranked “ending the COVID-19 pandemic” at the top of the list of Trump’s first-term achievements. 

Forget the balloons and party horns. There’s not a scintilla of truth to the claim. 

In Donald Trump’s world, everything’s fake news.

As Trump recently said: “People are tired of hearing (respected epidemiolist Anthony) Fauci and all these idiots, these people, these people that have gotten it wrong. Fauci’s a nice guy, he’s been here for 500 years, he called every one of them [Fauci’s predictions about the virus] wrong.”

And son-in-law Jared Kushner? Here’s what he told author Bob Woodward in a recently released recording: “Trump’s now back in charge; it’s not the doctors.”

Still playing the sympathy card, Trump continued: “People are tired of COVID. I have the biggest rallies I’ve ever had, and we have COVID … People are saying whatever. Just leave us alone. They’re tired of it. People are tired of hearing Fauci.”

In Donald Trump’s world, everything’s fake news. And death is just a number.

© Nicole Parton, 2020

A Trump-Free Future - Starring Donald J. Trump

What’s on my mind? Here’s what a friend posists about the upcoming US election, with input from Himself and from me. 

• Trump loses. 

• Widespread civil war breaks out.

• In a rambling speech littered with dog whistles and unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud, Trump resigns.

• Pence becomes interim President. 

• Pence pardons Trump for alleged high crimes and misdemeanors. 

• Barr supports the blanket pardon, which he helped craft.

• The Trumps and Kushner leave the building - heads down, spirits up. The FU factor is high on all sides.

• In an emergency sitting, the federal and Supreme Courts uphold Pence’s controversial pardon.

• In a move months in the making, Trump seamlessly announces the Trump TV channel, streaming to a platform near you. One of the first people onboard is former Fox, NBC, and podcast star Megyn Kelly, who of late has been praising Trump on social media. 

So whaddya think?

© Nicole Parton, 2020

Women and the Tortured Mind of Donald J. Trump

What’s on my mind? 

Watch the women: They include the white suburbanites President Donald Trump so desperately wants to win over. And esteemed television interviewers Leslie Stahl and Kristen Welker. And all the “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals” - to quote Trump’s words for the exhaustive list of women he dislikes. 

Keep your eye on those women. Watch as they and those who went before and those yet to feel his wrath hold their heads high as the misogynist-in-chief attacks them. Keep your eye on first lady Melania Trump and former second lady Jill Biden, too. More about them in a moment.

What’s the deal with Trump’s repeated attacks on women? Mid-September national polling showed nearly half of suburban women don’t like Donald Trump, believing he’s made their communities less safe.

“Women …” Trump begins at an Oct. 19 rally in Arizona. “I like women (growly voice) … Women … You used to call them suburban housewives. I’d better go [stet] politically correct.” 

He reels them in with the natural-born skill of a carnival barker:  “Is there one woman here that minds being called a ‘suburban housewife’?”  

A scattering of voices: “No!” 

Physical attraction aside, Trump doesn’t attack women if he wants something - and what he wants from these suburbanite women is the bump he needs in the polls. And so, as he’s done for months, he recites his not-always-coherent law-and-order sales pitch, claiming that under a President Joe Biden, “low-income housing (will) be built right next to your America’s dream.” 

The picture he paints is that crime and “these ANTIFA people and the radical left” will move in to “destroy these incredible communities …”

He flirts, he cajoles, he flatters, he threatens, he pleads … Anything to win their votes. A CNN fact-check of Trump’s repeated theme to suburbanites was that “parts of this are extremely misleading, while others are blatantly false.”

In 2015/16, the first time this creep ran for the Presidency, GQ Britain magazine questioned if Trump had retweeted a cover shot of a naked Melania taken in 2000, before the Trumps were married.  

The photos were shot on Trump’s private jet. As a woman, I recognize that Melania Trump’s elegance and tact long ago surpassed her modeling career. Surely, the photos are a lingering embarrassment for her. As the world’s most powerful man, Trump could surely have them struck from the Internet. Why he hasn’t, mystifies me.

Trump tweeted at least twice that Melania had posed for GQ, doubtless prompting a run on that particular back issue of the magazine. This strikes me as the coup de grâce in Trump’s Cruelty to Women campaign.

(When Melania vanished with a rumored kidney procedure, Trump seemed to go out of his way to comment that “Some people say it was plastic surgery, but ...”).

On Thursday, after becoming annoyed with seasoned anchor Leslie Stahl’s line of questioning, Trump stalked off the set mid-interview, during the taping of Sunday evening’s 60 Minutes. 

Trump then posted his own video of the show to Facebook, urging his followers to “look at the bias, hatred and rudeness on behalf of 60 Minutes and CBS.” In walking out, he gave one of the nation’s most popular news programs heightened status for the show on which he was appearing and - not unimportantly - gave himself a flurry of furious headlines less than two weeks before the US election. 

Was the walk-out a strategic publicity ploy? Or was Trump aggrieved with good reason? Even Trump may not know, anger being his go-to response.

Trump wasn’t finished. In trashing 60 Minutes and Stahl on Facebook, Trump took a swing at the moderator of that night’s Presidential debate: “Kristen Welker is far worse!” Slam, bam, no thank you, ma’am.

Having steadily criticized Welker days in advance of the debate, Trump knowingly or unknowingly constructed a plausible “out” should he lose: “She’s always been terrible and unfair, just like most of the Fake News reporters, but I’ll still play the game,” he tweeted.  

Trump had already called Welker “extraordinarily unfair … a disaster ... totally partisan ... very biased … a radical left Democrat, or whatever she is.” To seal the deal, Trump said Welker had been “screaming questions at me for a long time. She’s no good.”

Elsewhere, Trump twice commented that Welker’s parents “supported the Democrats” and had contributed to the Democratic National Convention as well as to Biden’s campaign.

Welker wasn’t fazed. Her unflappable, even-handed fairness during the debate was widely praised. Although it’s not in the official debate transcripts, Trump headed straight for moderator Welker’s desk in the pre-debate moments after he walked onstage. Despite the hubbub of debate prep, a single camera caught what happened next. 

In a low voice, Trump told Welker he knew about a meeting she’d had at (I believe the time was - NP) 6:15. Staring closely into Welker’s face, he added: “You both want me to lose.” The chilling subtext: I know where you go. I know who you see. I know what you say. I know where your parents go. I know who they see. I know what they say.

Returning to her notes, Welker carried on, seemingly unrattled.

That Trump would approach the woman moderating the debate comes as no surprise. That he would make a covert comment she wouldn’t forget is also not surprising. That such a comment would unnerve many women and intimidate others is just the way he rolls ... It’s not his fault, is it? 

Trump is a bully, and bullies are cowards at heart. Decent men do not normally perceive strong women as “enemies.” Donald Trump does. 

And Melania? Post-debate, the first lady strode onstage for the mandatory show of support and congratulations. Where Jill Biden flung herself into husband Joe’s arms, Melania was cool, aloof, and dressed entirely in black. One fashion writer described the effect as “somber.” 

Melania’s monochrome dress drew attention to her red-soled, Christian Louboutin black patent leather shoes. These are expensive shoes; elitist shoes; shoes with a sharply pointed toe box and 4.7 in. knife-sharp stiletto heels; shoes that squash the toes and squish the foot. These are not “We the people …” shoes.  

As the Trumps exited the stage hand-in-hand, Melania yanked her arm forward, releasing Trump’s grip. Walking ahead, she turned her back on the President of the United States. In turn, he gave her a little “back pat” that might have unbalanced a woman less accustomed to impossibly precarious shoes that make a “statement.” 

A friend once described such stilettos as “F*ck Me” shoes. In choosing to walk alone, Melania’s statement was a resounding “F*ck You.”

© Nicole Parton, 2020

We Came From Her Leg

What’s on my mind? If you missed my Oct. 8 post titled Where Did We Come From?  I hope you’ll read it before this follow-up.

For one thing, my pal Lorna Blake wrote: “My precocious eldest asked a variation of the same question when she was 5. I don’t know what she expected, but after I honestly replied, she said, ‘That’s ridiculous!’ and walked away.” 

For another, the Modern Love section of this morning’s New York Times now offers Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words. My favorite?  

We Came From Her Leg, by reader Nancy Shayne:

“I sit in my mother’s bed in Michigan. She asks, ‘How did I make you?’ Her eyes are fresh flowers. Her thin arms are stems. ‘I came from your leg,’ I answer. She has a long scar above her knee from an old accident. When we were young, she convinced my three sisters and me that this was how we were born. I run to the fridge before we continue our game. Nothing is there but a box, her hospice package. Morphine and pills. She has dementia and doesn’t know she’s dying. I do. Brave for love, I walk back in.”

© The New York Times and Nancy Shayne, with commentary by Nicole Parton, 2020

The China Syndrome

What’s on my mind? 

My Darling Children:

As you remember, last Christmas you gave me the gift of the New York Times! Amazing, even if all-consuming and hard to keep up (Did you know Joe Biden has just won the Democratic nomination for President?). Because your gift was electronic, I won’t turn into one of those hoarders with stacks of newspapers heaped all around my desk, ha-ha!

You also gave me four exquisite sets of turquoise china and a set of salt and pepper. I fell over in shock! And then I thought: “Four?” Perfect for us and two guests in the kitchen nook, but what about a larger gathering in the dining room? So I bought two more sets. 

And then I thought: “Six sets? What if something gets chipped or broken?” So I bought a seventh. 

And then I thought: “This china would be perfect outside!” Our outdoor tables seat 10. So I bought three more sets. 

And then I thought: “Mugs! Must have mugs!” I bought 10. “Cream and sugar!” I bought a set, and then another, “just in case.” 

And appie bowls! And salad dishes! And cereal bowls! And little bowls for crème brûlée! And a butter dish! And a gravy boat! And a wine cooler! And a water jug! And small platters!

Himself has just surprised me with three big bowls for salads and mashed potatoes. A turkey-sized platter arrives Friday. It’s a sickness. Himself is my beloved enabler.

I had nowhere to put all this china - especially with the turkey platter on its way. So I bought a new china cabinet for the living room. What didn’t fit in it is stored in the china cabinet in the kitchen nook, the main china cabinet in the living room, and the china cabinet in the dining room. 

Christmas is just around the corner. Please give us nothing. We can’t afford it.

xox   Mum

After emailing my kids this note, I thought: “COVID-19!” And felt like a fool - a fool with a very large, very costly set of china. Himself saw this in a different light: “You believe in celebrations! You believe in a future without COVID! You’re a positive person!” A positive person with honkin’ big set of china. As Edith Piaf sang: Je ne regrette rien.

© Nicole Parton, 2020

“Where Did We Come From?”

 What’s on my mind? I must be getting doddery because I’ve been thinking about the time my grown children were toddlers. I have three: Roger Leon Parton, born in January, 1971; and twins Samantha and Erin Parton, born in December, 1971. They were precocious; they were adorable. 

Being so close in age, they frequently huddled together, whispering and sharing what little each knew of the world. Erin, younger than Sam by 10 minutes, was often leader of the pack. And so it was that Erin emerged from one of these huddles when all were three years old.

“Mum?” she asked, “where did we come from?”

 

(I remember thinking: “ACK! So soon?" As I’ve said, they were precocious.)

Confronting the question matter-of factly, I sat down as three toddlers stared, awaiting my answer. As I began, I remember forming a circle with the thumb and index finger of my left hand, as well as extending the index finger of my right. 

I then told them their Mummy and Daddy had taken off all their clothes and Daddy had ... and Mummy had ... The straightened index finger of my right hand was now slipping in and out of the thumb-and-index circle I’d created with my left. 

I went on and on ... The egg …! The sperm …! The egg, again! My right index finger moved faster and faster and faster! When I began this story, my toddlers were mesmerized. When I thought to look up from my furiously in-out-in-out finger, all three were sobbing. 

They wanted to know where they’d come from; I’d told them. Why the tears? 

Still the leader of the pack, Erin choked out: “We meant … We meant … Which hospital?”

© NicoleParton, 2020

The Crying Season

What’s on my mind? I am not a young woman. I feel young, but when I look in the mirror … Well, I’m not. As a woman in her mid-70s, I’ve entered the Crying Season - that sad time of life when beloved friends of a similar age have become less vigorous, are gradually losing their minds to dementia, or are sick or dying. 

Yesterday, I had the distinct pleasure of speaking to an exceptional man I deeply admire and respect. He is a good man; a kind man; a generous man. He is now 95. He and his also-exceptional wife have been married 72 years - she, at 17, he at 23.

Many years ago, I met the housekeeper who began working for them when she was 15. She retired at 80. That’s the kind of devotion good and kind and generous people inspire. He told me he’s going to shoot for 100, and after that, 105. I hope he succeeds in that aim.

The world is a lesser place when good people exit it, as they’ve started to do in my little life. People die at every age, of course. The Crying Season is universal. But when it intrudes on your life in ever-greater numbers, it assumes a sobering reality.

I was devastated when a friend two decades my senior died of a brain tumor. We’d lost touch; I wasn’t aware she was sick. It’s been three years; I miss her still. When two other older women dropped of the map, I checked the obits to learn they’d died, and said a little prayer. Their regular phone calls offered such pleasure; if only I’d told them, at the time.

A third - who with her many boyfriends and trilling announcement that: “It’s Lil-yeeee!” - was such fun that I sometimes let her motor-mouth for an hour. She disappeared, too. The was no obituary: It took some sleuthing to learn she’d died. A raven-haired,  blue-eyed beauty when she was young, she’d become so stooped she paralleled the floor, yet still attracted men well into her 80s. Her infectious joy inspired love and loyalty. I miss her phone calls, too. 

One of my closest, longest friends requires what is euphemistically called “memory care.” Our lives have been intertwined since we were teenagers. Nothing should come as a surprise in the Crying Season, but sadness still seeps into my bones.

A distant friend, 79 this month, is emotionally ill. Watching him struggle is painful. 

A pragmatic couple dear to my heart recently wrote the most difficult letter of their lives - telling friends of his soon-to-be fulfilled wish for an assisted death: “After 14 years of valiant effort and dedicated support of the medical community, and in our 38th year together and on our wedding anniversary, (he) will reach the end of (his) increasingly excruciating pain. 

“He and I both thank you for the days of his journey when you walked the road with us … So much laughter interspersed with tears and sorrow. So much happiness and wonder! Treasure the memories. They will bring you comfort when you reach your December …”

The Crying Season: It hurts.

© Nicole Parton, 2020

Sex Tips for the Old and Restless

What’s on my mind? You probably won’t believe this story, but every word is true.

When I was a young mother, I answered an ad headed: “Want to swing?” It was a curious ad - no names, no addresses, no phone numbers - just a post office box. I really, really, really wanted to learn how to swing, so I wrote to ask the cost, and how my then-husband Alan and I could join a group.

The woman who called in response to my note said she and her husband had been swinging for years. After saying that swinging had perked up their lives, and asking how many nights we were available, she asked if we were energetic.

“We’re always running around!” I said. “We’re ready to swing!”

I invited them over after dinner, saying that by then, our two-year-old son and year-old daughters would be asleep. 

I could hardly wait to find out where to take lessons and get the right clothing! I wanted one of those red-checked dresses; Alan wanted a string tie. We honestly believed “swingers” were square dancers. Wrong-o.

Shortly before the swingers arrived, son Roger - who’d nodded off in our bed - trained his personal fire hose on the mattress. At the very moment the swingers rang the bell, Alan was dragging the mattress from the bedroom to the back porch, to air it out. When the swingers rang the bell, he dropped the wet and pee-stinky mattress on the living room floor.

Several things happened at once. Still convinced swingers were square dancers, Alan and I had no idea that hauling out the mattress signaled an eagerness to swing. The swingers looked at the mattress. The swingers looked at us. 

Their jaws hanging open like Howdy Doody’s, they made a swift allemande left, and were gone.

We thought they wanted to square dance. They thought we wanted to Hop on Pop. And on Mom, too. 

© Nicole Parton, 2020

The Invisible Trampoline

What’s on my mind? I was staring out the window when I saw something curious: Two bunnies on an invisible trampoline, each bouncing straight up in the air, as if they were on springs.

Boing! went the first as the second bunny watched. Boing! went the second as the first looked on. Boing! went the first, again. Boing! went the second. And so it went.

“What are those rabbits doing now?” I thought. Because they’re always up to something. Boing! Boing! Boing! Up-down-up-down-up-down.

I didn’t understand until one bunny flashed behind the other to smell its bum. Then I figured it out.

Boing! is the prelude to bonk! A nooner. The good ol’ rumpy-pumpy. Up-down-up-down-up-down means up-down-up-down-up-down. That these bunnies are so brazen and open and public about … (I’ll spell it out; pre-schoolers could be listening) ... S-E-X amazes me.

I’d expect this kind of behavior in Vegas, but on our staid little island? If those bunnies aren’t careful, the next thing they’ll know is that one of them might just get knocked up.

© Nicole Parton, 2020

“Oh, Hell, You’re Not a ... ”

What’s on my mind? Last week, the local paper reported two cougars openly stalking prey in our village-that-calls-itself-a-town. When one killed a miniature pony in its pen, residents feared for their children and small pets.

Also last week, the paper ran a story that a woman down the island had crouched on her unlit porch beside what she thought was the neighbor’s dog: “How did you get back here? You’d better go home now … I’m not going to let you in. Then it turned its head and I said: ‘Oh, hell, you’re not a dog.’ ”

*   *   *

This week, on a street near our house, Himself and I came upon a wispy clump of fuzz, some tiny bones flecked with blood, and the detached leg of a rabbit. Its head, internal organs, and other three legs were gone.  

The symmetry of the backbone seemed oddly undisturbed, as though the rabbit had peeled off its fur coat to expose the efficiently organized bones that until recently had served its small body well. 

I remembered something I’d read after the death of the pony: “A cougar goes about its feeding with almost surgical precision.” And here, in the exacting proof of that statement, lay the rabbit’s remains in perfect, tidy arrangement.

A cougar with cubs once stalked my daughter, who was then an environmental conservation officer. The experience was so unnerving that not only did she quit her job, but she moved to the other side of the country.

I once knew a woman stalked by a cougar while on horseback. Her nervous horse saved her by pooping - a delicacy the cougar couldn’t resist - after which the big cat lost interest. 

Himself and I once saw a cougar on a trail where families walked with toddlers and unleashed dogs. Dashing from one family to the next, we were roundly ignored as we tried to warn the young families of impending danger ahead.

*   *   *

One day ago, on a wilderness trail far from our house, Himself and I were engaged in conversation about - wouldn’t you know it? - cougars, when I heard a loud, deep-throated growl in the underbrush, perhaps 100 ft. away. 

Frozen in terror, I asked: “Did you hear that?” 

“What?” He had not.

“A cougar! ” Himself looked skeptical. 

We saw nothing - typical of cougars - but the growl’s intensity was unmistakable. We started retracing our steps to leave the trail.

A lone jogger pumped past. “I have to warn her!” I said.

Despite our previous, failed experience in trying to warn others, the jogger stopped and listened. “You saw it?” she asked. “I didn’t see it,” I said. “I heard it. You’re running ... You’re alone … It’ll come after you.” 

She shrugged and continued running. Two or three minutes later, we saw her again, now running past us. “Changed my mind!”  she yelled. 

A man zipped past us, heading for the trail’s end. Briefly stopping, he asked: “You the woman who seen the cougar?” The jogger must have told him.

“I didn’t see it. I heard …” 

“I’m gettin’ outta here while the gettin’s good.” Which he did, tout-de-suite. 

We met a threesome on the trail - a young man and woman and an elderly, skinny woman. As the couple charged off in the direction of the growl, the skinny woman hobbled behind, unable to keep up. 

“Stop!” I called. “I heard a cougar …”  

“We know! A guy running out of the woods told us!  He said it attacked you!” 

“It didn’t attack me! I didn’t even see it, but I heard …” 

No attack? They lost interest. But they still wanted to see the cougar. The skinny woman trembled, afraid of what lay ahead. 

If I couldn’t appeal to their reason, I’d appeal to her fear. 

“Cougars always attack the weakest in the group!” I shouted to the couple’s retreating backs. 

Like a sacrificial lamb suddenly rescued, the skinny woman mew-mewled: “The newspaper said it killed a poh-nee.” Their bravado erased by guilt, the young couple sidled back, asking: “Really? The paper said that?” 

“Ripped the pony to shreds,” I lied. “Nothing left but a line of bones along its back.” 

I thought of the rabbit’s orderly backbone; my friend with the pooping horse; my daughter’s justified fear of the stalking cougar; our futile warnings to families with toddlers and free-ranging dogs.

“What did the cougar sound like?” I gave the threesome my deepest and best growl - so impressive that they decided not to meet the cougar, after all. 

“Do you think I should call the paper?” I later asked Himself.

“But you didn’t see anything,” he said. 

True enough. I’d heard growling. Nothing more. I thought what the woman crouched on the porch had said after she talked to the dog-slash-cougar: “Oh, hell, you’re not a dog.” 

I imagined myself crouched in the underbrush, hearing that loud, deep growl. I imagined the animal drawing closer, and seeing its (huh?) collar and flapping tail. I imagined myself saying: “Oh, hell, you’re not a cougar.”

© Nicole Parton, 2020