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4:50 p.m. - 2004-10-01 There's a Dead Goose In My YardOur neighborhood is rife with an annoyance called the Canada Goose. I don't know why they call it the Canada Goose as it never goes to Canada. They stay right here in the suburbs of Chicago Illinois pooping dog poop sized poops all over the parks, sidewalks and bike paths. The only thing that gets my husband out of the recliner and away from the latest Perry Mason rerun is seeing Geese come within 50 feet of our front door. Since he doesn't want to track goose poop into the house, he keeps a large stick at the front door and when he sees the geese come too close, he goes out and runs after them, honking like an angry goose; "Honk...Honk...Honk", waving the stick, then he throws the stick at the flock, scaring them as far away as possible. This puts them far enough out in the field that it takes them another 1/2 hour to wander back to the house and he repeats the spectacle all over again. And a spectacle it is...let me tell you, especially the honking like an angry goose part. The geese travel in packs, slowly making their way from one place to the next, their necks shifting forward and back as their large hind end waddles back and forth. Sometimes they decide to cross the street and they don't care how many cars are waiting for them, they just take their own sweet time. They look at the cars and say "go ahead, try to run us down...we're protected you know and you'll go to jail". I know that is what they are saying. Geese are arrogant. The people who put them on the endangered list should come to Elk Grove Village. Well, last Wednesday night someone decided they weren't going to wait for the geese. I'll bet they were'nt aiming to kill one, probably just scare them and well....the damned arogant goose wasn't afraid. The goose called the drivers bluff and the driver, thinking it would fly out of the way, hit it and killed it. That night we looked out the window and lamented that this poor critter had to die. We figured that someone from the public works department would come and scoop it up. In the wee hours of Wednesday night/Thrusday morning, something drug it across the street and into our yard leaving a trail of down and feathers from where it got killed. The neighborhood kids came by and looked at it...some kids got a stick and poked at it. People on their evening walks would come up and look at it. It was quite an attraction in our neighborhood. Hadn't anyone seen a dead goose before. My husband went out and looked at it to and it no longer had a head and it's body had been gutted. "Good thing the Landscapers come on Friday." I said as I looked out on the almost unrecognizable headless goose carcass. See, I figured that while mowing the lawn, one of them would pick it up. WRONG!!!!! The landscapers did indeed come today but when I got home from work, I found the headless goose carcass closer to the front door. So close that if I sat at my picnic table or tried to grill a hamburger, I would have to look at it. Seems that the landscapers mowed up to the goose, picked up and tossed it into a mown area and continued to mow, not thinking that as long as they had to pick it up anyway, they could have put it in a garbage can. My husband called the village and they told him to put the dead goose back in the street and they would scoop it up on Monday. "Monday" I cried, "you mean we have to look at that thing til Monday? And who has to scoop it up and carry it to the street?" I bitched and bitched and bitched until my husband reached the point where he would rather shovel up the goose than listen to me bitch anymore. When he picked it up, a swarm of bees, followed by a swarm of flies came out of it. Nature is doing it's clean up work....just not fast enough for me. You should have seen the look on my husbands face when he returned from scoop up duty. Well...isn't that what husbands are for? P. I. Yarnsmith
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