Goosed

We’ve been goosed!

By our polite Canadian neighbors.

I don’t know why it took me so long to catch on.

While news outlets have provided non-stop coverage of the United States putting the squeeze on Iran, no one seems to have followed the story of how our Canadian neighbors have been goosing the United States for years.  I realized this quite by accident.

I was driving down the five-lane highway toward my home when I saw the traffic ahead of me slow to a stop.  As I approached the line-up, I could see two adult Canadian geese high-stepping across all five lanes of the busy highway.  In front of the adult geese were four goslings, little yellow and grey powder puffs on tiny webbed feet.  In their determined, goosey, take-your-time way, the avian family made its way into the parking lot of the International Union of Operating Engineers. 

The geese walked up the driveway as though they knew exactly where they were going.  I wondered: could they be members of this international union? The people who build our roads, bridges, and buildings?  The people who do the heavy lifting, so to speak?  It seemed quite possible.  I thought about what a strong and vocal union the local geese had become.  They hold up heavy traffic at their will.  They bend the arc of pedestrian and bicycle traffic with their droppings.  When they take a stance, they mean it.  They will shout and squabble all day long defending their positions. They are not timid in swooping down on busy roads and tall bridges, and they don’t show a smidgeon of fear of the few local bald eagles that nest along the river that they share.  The bald eagles are way outnumbered.  These engineering geese have been busy working and reproducing while the American bald eagle’s idea of being busy is looking majestic, nesting and having its photo taken by enraptured passersby. 

As I see it, Canada has been quietly and slowly taking over the United States one goose at a time.  If my town is any reflection, this is a serious invasion.  And the geese regularly shut down my busy local thoroughfare, the Strait of Vamoose, the route into and out of downtown.  While the geese generously supply us with fertilizer, they do impede the flow of traffic into and out of the gas stations along the Strait.  More importantly, these frequent closings of the Strait of Vamoose do impede the flow of morning coffee at the ports of Tim Hortons, Starbucks and Sheetz, and that right there could start an all-out war.  By teasing us with repeated tie-ups and shutdowns, the geese have learned that they own the straightaway.  As of now, the traffic has been cautious in stopping and waiting while the geese cross the Strait, but I don’t know how long it will be before there is open retaliation.  We are all living on borrowed time waiting for the Strait to open once and for all.

No one has tried to round up these illegal avian immigrants.  As a matter of fact, citizens are strictly forbidden from causing injury to these invaders. (I am guessing they are all here on Einstein visas being members of the International Union of Operating Engineers and all, and many are claiming birthright citizenship.)  In any event, what’s clear to me now is that Canada gave us the bird a long time ago and no one in the administration has yet to cry fowl!