User:Lethe/goose

The goose story

The goose story is one of my favorite stories about myself. I like to tell it in great detail. Like my high school fight, I consider it a defining moment for me, discovering what I'm capable of, physically as well as mentally. It was a moment of visceral accomplishment. However, it is a bit gruesome, and some people have been known to get freaked out when they hear it. I told it to my teammates in college before a race, and they loved it. It earned me a few affectionate nicknames with those guys. On the other hand, some squeamish girls have gotten really creeped out by this story, and by my relish in retelling it. So if you're squeamish, and you don't want to think I'm creepy, then don't read it.

Also, it seems really long in writing, so I'll give you the abridged version first: I once killed a goose with my bare hands.

It was the summer after junior year of high school. Back then, we used to hang out at this one kid's house whose single mother had won the lottery, because they had a huge house and you could usually do whatever you wanted there. For example, that's where I first drank booze, smoked a cigarette, smoked pot.

There was a lot of land, and a lake. I think it had previously been a horse farm or something. During the summer, free of obligations, I would sometimes live at his house for days or even weeks. And with no parental influence or the demands of conforming to school standards, I regressed into something of a caveman; no shoes, no shirt. Instead of bathing, I would just jump into the lake once every couple of days. My hair and beard would get all shaggy. It was great.

The house was surrounded by acres of grass, and there were large herds of Canadian geese. His mom used to complain about the geese a lot, I guess they pooped on the lawn or something. So one day, we were sitting around bullshitting on the porch, and the primitive hunter-gatherer portion of my psyche suggested to me the brilliant idea that I should chase down, kill, cook and eat one of the geese. A chance to test my strength, plus, I'd be doing the mom a favor!

So I went out to one of the remote pastures where a herd of geese were grazing, wearing nothing but a pair of old ratty lacrosse shorts. I watched the geese for a minute and then started the goose chase. I singled one out, and just sprinted at it. The whole flock sort of dispersed, and some of them took to the air, but when they flew, they would just go to the other side of the field, instead of flying away. So I followed them to the other side, sprinting after my selected goose.

Infused with the thrill of the hunt, I chased this goose for quite a while with superhuman speed and stamina. Eventually, I cornered him, caught him, and went in for the kill. I figured the best way to kill a goose is to just snap it's long goosey goose neck. So I grabbed his neck in two hands and just folded it in half.

With it's neck folded in half, the goose looked up at me and honked, completely unharmed by the attempted neck-snapping. So I tried to twist his neck, with similar results. At a loss for what to do next, I released the lucky goose and went back to the house.

My cohorts, suitably disappointed at my failure, all came up with various suggestions for the proper way to kill a goose, and after some planning, I went back out there. After a vigorous goose chase, I caught another one. I tried snapping and twisting its neck again, just to be sure. Then I tried a suggestion from the dirty truck driver uncle; I picked up the goose by its neck, and whipped it, letting the weight of its body break its neck. This didn't really work either; the goose was still alive. It did have one rather unpleasant effect though of separating the skin from the base of the goose's neck so that it slid up to its head, basically skinning its neck.

At this point, there was no turning back, the goose had to be killed. I laid its neck along a rock on the ground and bludgeoned it gruesomely with a stick until it grudgingly gave up its life. The gore did not put me off, if anything it fueled my bloodlust.

I carried my prize back to the house with pride. I took some utensils out to the driveway to prepare my goose to be cooked. The first thing I did was chop its head off with a meat cleaver right at the base. I was astonished to discover that one could still make the goose honk by squeezing its body just the right way. I had a lot of fun holding the goose head in one hand and the goose body under the other arm and honking at people with it.

Then I plucked the goose feathers and started dismembering it with some kitchen knives. When I opened its guts, I experienced what I thought at the time was the worst smelling stench of my life from the half-digested goose shit from its intestines. Then it was pretty much ready for the oven, though the driveway looked as though a goose had exploded nearby (which was, of course, not too far from the truth).

At this point, the mom came home, took one look around, and flipped out. Of course she disallowed the idea of that goose carcass going into her kitchen. She had a small tantrum and so I had to throw the goose away and hose off the driveway.

Now, they didn't have regular garbage cans at this place, instead they had a dumpster that got picked up once a month or so. A week later or so, I was back home at my parents house and I got the phone call. It was my friend, his mom needed me to come over right away.

When I arrived, it was immediately apparent what the problem was: the dead goose, sitting in the summer heat for a week, had started rotting and was making a very bad stink that was making it difficult to even approach the house. The mom gave me a garbage bag and a pair of rubber gloves and told me to take care of it. I climbed into the dumpster with the gloves on, while Mambo held the garbage bag immediately outside the dumpster. The smell inside the dumpster was enough to make you throw up; in fact, Mambo did throw up, and he wasn't even inside the dumpster.

I fished around through the garbage, finding the occasional organ floating in this disgusting 4 inch deep layer of warm unidentifiable liquid. I tossed them into the garbage bag. Eventually I found the jackpot, the carcass itself. As I lifted it out of the water, the fetid stink washed over me like a slimy ooze. This was the most horrible smell of my life, I had been wrong before. It was worse than the Bog of Eternal Stench. This is the point at which Mambo vomited.

I climbed out and immediately jumped in the lake, and then took a proper shower.