Wake Up Call!

In general, I do not sleep in very late. As much as I like to get my eight hours of sleep in, it's not beyond my ken to settle for six hours a night. So, on Tuesday night when I went to bed at midnight, I figured that I would get *at least* six hours of sleep, if not seven or eight.

So imagine my surprise when, at 6:00 am yesterday morning, I was ripped from Slumber Land by the sound of GUN FIRE. GUN FIRE! I can't recall ever seeing a real loaded gun held by someone other than a police officer, and here I am, lying in bed, hearing a gun going off.

Drawing upon my warrior-like instincts, I did what any sensible person would do: I hid under the covers and hoped that my bedroom door wouldn't get kicked in. My time spent waiting in nervous anticipation was not done in silence; quite to the contrary, the peacock-sextet (there were seven, one has since been eaten by the owners) catterwald and made an awful commotion in the tree outside my window. *BAM* came the second shot and then, silence.

Feeling braver, I emerged from my den of blankets, knelt upon the bed, and pulled the shades up ever so slightly. Dressed in a worn jacket and jeans, our grizzly neighbor was standing about 20 feet from my window with a shotgun raised to his eye and, as the ostensible target, was a big black dog. *BAM* and the dog went down. Having been thus roused, I decided that I needed a cup of Wyoming's finest coffee, available only at Burger King.

Moral of the story: if you are a dog that is foraging for food anywhere near St Stephens Mission, DO NOT eat, or attempt to eat, the rabbits that our neighbor raises in order to feed his pet bobcat. Yep, a pet bobcat. I'm happy with a pet rock, and I live next to a pet bobcat. Only in Wyoming.

Many novice go on their Short Experiment and come home with tales about how they saved the world, aided old women, taught English to immigrants, accompanied the dying into "the light," counseled students, provided legal aide, or whatever fun and interesting things they might have done. I didn't do any of this, but I can at least claim to have been woken up by my neighbor defending the lives of his rabbits - the same rabbits he'd later feed to his bobcat - from a marauding canine.

Only in Wyoming, folks. Only in Wyoming.