There’s a DEER Loose in the Wood
I told Charlie we needed a dog. When Joe started to get old, I said to him (Charlie, not the dog), “We’d better get another dog.”
“No more dogs,” he says. “They bark all the time. They dig holes everywhere. If the riding mower hits a hole on one of these hills, it could tump* over on me and kill me. If you’d rather have a dog, I guess I can’t stop you.”
Well, when he put it like that….
So now we have no dog, and our next-door-daughter’s dog has to do all the barking and digging for no extra pay. And the wildlife is closing in. 
The other day, Bambi’s uncle was up in the front yard.
I went to take a picture of his white tail as he bounded away — and he didn’t bound away. He just stood there looking at me. After a while, he got tired of the paparazzi and strolled back into the woods, probably shedding ticks like a stripper sheds sequins.
I told our #4 Daughter we’ll probably have Thumper kicking the door in, demanding carrots with menaces.
Deer and rabbits are vegetarians, right?
*tump: (verb) colloq. A combination of turn and dump. Ex. The dang wheelbarra tumped over and all the turnips fell out!
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character is forced to live in closer proximity to wildlife than is really comfortable. Yes, I’ve both read and seen LIFE OF PI. 
MA
