I do pretty good on my own. I devise ways to move things that are too heavy for me. I use penetrating oil to loosen a bolt that I can’t budge for the life of me. I keep a fairly good sense of humor about taking care of problems/disaster/repairs by myself.
But every once in while I hit the wall. I did that today.
I’ve come to realize it’s not the degree of difficulty or the lack of upper body strength, or just not being big enough or strong enough in general — it’s the grossness value. That’s what stops me dead in my tracks.
The problem
I headed my vehicle out the driveway this morning and was faced with two buzzards sitting out by my mailbox. I hate buzzards. They are parasitic creatures who wait for something else to kill some poor unsuspecting critter and then they sweep in to reap the rewards. Of course, you have to bear in mind those rewards consist of rotting carcasses. Am I unkind or can someone tell me what’s to love about these birds?
One buzzard politely flew away as I approached in my vehicle. The other sat there and looked at me. It ticked me off so I blew the horn until it flew away. Yep – there was a dead animal right at the base of my mailbox.
I have utterly shocked male friends with what a complete and total weenie I am with dead animals. Oh joy. What was I going to do with this one? This past year I had lived in a rural area so there was no animal control office to call for assistance.
Fortunately I had to meet a friend so I could back burner the problem until I returned. Later that day I headed home with the intention of loading up my dogs to go to a park and walk.
I paused at the entrance of my drive and discovered those buzzards (or some other critter) had had the last laugh. They had dragged the dead carcass down to sit in the middle of my driveway. OMG – gross!!!
And NO, I did not take photos. The images burned in my brain are bad enough, I don’t need pictures.
I followed through on my plan and took my dogs on their walk. Driving home I pondered what I would face when I got there. There was no one to call, no man to say “Honey – would you take care of this for me?” I was stuck and unsure I could screw up the resolve to deal with it myself.
When I got home I told myself to stop thinking about it and suck it up. I put the dogs in the house so they wouldn’t try to participate (how gross would that be?). I got a shovel from the garage. I steeled myself and walked out to the dead animal. Thank the heavens it had not been eviscerated and it wasn’t a gory mess. I got it onto the shovel and walked across the road to a wooded area that is county property that no one used and pitched the poor little critter as far into the woods as I could. There was no way I was loading it into my SUV to take to the dump. Sorry – no way I could hack that. I’d be imagining dead animal odor for months.
I mosied up to the garage thinking how lovely it would have been to have a man around I could have asked to deal with the dead critter. I was hesitant to put the shovel back without disinfecting it. That may be stupid, but I don’t know and I worry about the dogs contracting something.
So it got me thinking of where I draw the line on what I am comfortable taking care of. Dead animals are definitely on the negative side of that line. Sewage problems would reside there as well. Flooding basements fall in that category, but that’s due to previous history more than revulsion. It would be nice to call on someone else when the dogs have digestive problems that result in piles of grossness coming from one end or the other. I need to think about where I draw the line some more. I do know my plan is to move back into a city so there are people I can call for some of these problems.
By the way – the poor deceased creature was a pretty little gray raccoon. Sniff. It made me very sad. It has my sincere apologies for not giving it a proper burial, but I did the best I could under the circumstances. Now I’m worried the buzzards will discover it and once again drag it over to my driveway…
