City Slicker

When I was young, and even now, I loved to listen to my grandma's stories about what it was like for her growing up. Besides the decade and current events being much different, the geographic region was much different. I grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago. My grandma grew up and lived all over Missouri and she was a farm kid. I was always intrigued by the kind of chores she had and the animals she saw all the time. I had heard about cow tipping from the kids at school. Apparently, this is when you go out into a field, late at night when the cows are sleeping. Since they sleep standing up, all you have to do is push them over. This is apparently supposed to be great fun. I asked my grandma about it one day and when I did, she just laughed and called me a City Slicker. She must have seen the look of confusion on my face because then she asked me if I knew how much a cow weighed and that it would take quite a few people to tip over a cow and not only that, the cow would wake up once you touched her. I learned two things that day. The first being that you can't tip a cow, well without an army and without the cow knowing. The second thing I learned was that my grandma was right, I was a City Slicker.

I don't think being a City Slicker is necessarily a bad thing. I wear that title like a gold star. I don't want to kill my dinner before I prepare it. I don't want to have to wake up super early to milk cows and feed animals. The only time I get self conscious about it is when I am at a county fair - I swear those 4H kids are laughing at me. I think if I had to, I could maybe blend in with the country folks for a short amount of time anyway. (I can see Troy and my parents laughing at that line and completely disagreeing.) There would be one thing that would give me away though . . . my amusement of wild animals.

Yep, I am one of those people who gets excited to see a cardinal in the backyard. In fact, my whole family is that way. My parents used to take a certain road on the way to church to see if the resident ground hog was out. We would gawk at deer in a field. One time, my sister Rebecca and I saw a fox at a park and we followed it as it trotted down a bike path. Even Troy has been known to pause the TV to point out a woodpecker in the front lawn. But last week, I saw the mother of all wild animals - well, that can be seen outside of a zoo in the mid-west at least.

The stone archway on my route to school.

I was on my way to work and the neighborhood where my school is happens to be surrounded by woods. The drive through the town is charming. There is this adorable stone archway that only one car can pass through at a time. I actually love to drive to work; it is so relaxing. One morning, I was driving a little bit slower than usual. I had just gone under the stone archway when a WOLF darted from the woods, across the street. That's right, straight out of the Twilight books, Jacob flew across the road with pieces of his ripped denim shorts still in the tuffs of his fur. This City Slicker's mouth must have been gaping wide open; I have never seen a wild wolf before! The minute I parked my car at school, I excitedly texted Troy about what I saw and then went in the building to talk to another teacher about it. At this point I was second guessing myself. Maybe that is not what I saw, but she confirmed that there were wolves in those woods. The City Slicker in me was amazed. That night, Troy and I Googled pictures of wolves so I could show him what it looked like.

The wolf sighting made me think more about being a City Slicker. I am sure that country folks would have thought the wolf was at least mildly amusing, but I thought it was awesome! Maybe my 'burbs upbringing has made me appreciate wild life more. 

Just as long as I am seeing it from the inside of my car.