I've Been Pooped On By Too Many Species

"When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the other passengers in his car."--Will Rogers


This may seem like a very odd post compared to the ones I've posted in the past month about my travels. However due to recent events with certain species I felt it necessary to comment.

I have a weird relationship with nature and sometimes it literally poops on me. I am a very outdoorsy person as long as I don't come into contact with a spider.... then awkward panicked flail action that we all know so well comes into play and I am filled with horror while every onlooker thinks I'm insane. Mais c'est la vie.

Here's a recap of my weird animal shenanigans as I like to call them.

Cows

When I was around 7 years old my parents and I were visiting the UK. We happened to be in a field near cows. I can't remember why so please recover quickly if the suspense was killing you. I was cold so I was wearing my dad's fleece jacket that he loves so much. I've never met a man more dedicated to fleece in my life. But that's another story. I survived a 10 minute lecture on why I should not get to close to the cows and to above all not let it lick his jacket. What happened next? I gigantic cow came up to me and licked my literally from my knees up to my face. My Dad watched in absolute horror and disbelief and I think his eyes nearly bulged out of his head as my natural instincts took over and I went to wipe the disgusting cow spit off of my face with his precious fleece. Oops. I've never borrowed his jacket again... The point of this story is that I knew how to react to that. Total disgust. Like this:

Here's a picture of me right before it slobbered all over me to my Dad's horror. 

Less than a year ago I took a trip to Hadrian's Wall and a few of us went on a walk at night. We literally could not see our hands in front of our faces it was so dark. We were walking past a field thinking they were empty and were just enjoying having an adventure when.... A cow decides it would be funny to moo a deep guttural horror movie like moo right as we walked by at a sound level of epic proportions. Never have I ever been so terrified of a cow... 

Sheep

Sheep and I just don't get along for some reason. Mishaps have been occurring since I was 7 and have not stopped since. They also have seemed to amplify every time I've been in the UK. Maybe I'm not around livestock in the US but oh well. At the age of 7 I visited my Aunt Kathy in Kippen, Scotland. There was a field full of sheep right next to her house and me being the weird curious child that I was decided I wanted to pet one. Bad choice. I started petting it and immediately became confused as to my my jeans were being tugged down and towards the fence. I looked down and a sheep is, I kid you not, staring me right in the eye and attempting to eat my own jeans off of me. I've never liked sheep since. But once again instinct kicked in and I knew what to do. I ran the heck out of there before I was eaten alive and probably made a face something like this:

As some of you may have read in the Archaeology of Sheep blog I had another adventure with sheep. I was on an archaeological dig in a field that was infested with sheep and lambs. At one point I looked up only to find 10 sheep about 20ft away just staring at me. Apparently they had been like that for a while. I also had a lamb follow me around for a good 2 hours for no apparent reason. 

Birds

Whether they be pigeons or sea gulls or another spiteful bird of flight everyone has been pooped on by a bird. It's just the most disgusting poop of all. I won't go into detail. However, it's worse than stepping in it because they always seem to poop on you when you're going places instead of heading home or when you feel like you look great today only to find out they pooped on your hair or clothes. Most people react in an exasperated and REALLY? WHY? Of all the places in the world that you could've pooped it had to be on me. (^%###$%&^%&) Or some version of that.

Exotic Animals

Not only have I had encounters with regular livestock you find in your fridge, but I have also had run ins with animals most people don't encounter in suburbia.. that is unless you're me. There is an exotic animal farm right down the road from where I live and a friend of mine happens to live next door. He invited me over to help him petsit 2 baby monkeys. I thought this was just going to be hours full of cute energetic monkeys climbing on me and all around fun. Guess again Emma. Guess again. I was holding this adorable diapered monkey on my chest and I was under the impression it was sleeping. Nope. It was laying in wait. For what, you may ask?  To punch me in the nose and shove its fist up my nostril. I was certainly not prepared for that....or having a monkey dangle from my nostril. I assume it looked something like this:

That same day we walked outside to see the camel... I should've known that my day was just going to get weirder. I guess it was hungry but I turned to look at the llama for one second and the next thing I know I had been bitten on the boob by the camel... All I know is that I was deeply offended with a hint of "did that really just happen?"

Alright that isn't a poop enounter, but I felt it was weird enough to include. Now we've all stepped in dog, cat, or horse poop at some point in our lives. It's like a right of passage as a human being. But I guarantee this next thing has not happened to 99.99% of you.

The weirdest thing you will ever be pooped on:

A bee. Yes you read that correctly. I was walking back to my flat the other day and a bee landed on me. After raking up a nest in the 5th grade and getting stung by 10 yellow jackets I have never been a fan... it's more like I've been terrified. I still run out of the room yelling for my dad to kill a wasp whenever I see one in my house. Sad I know, but I'm scarred for life. Back to my story. This bee landed on my hand and I inwardly panicked, but stayed calm on the outside so I wouldn't get stung. About 5 seconds later it flies off and I see the characteristic brownish pile of poo on my hand the size of a small dot. I just stood there staring at my hand. I had no previous protocol to follow if a bee decides you are the perfect toilet. Did I get angry? No I can't run after the bee and punch it in the face for being so rude. Scared? No that's just silly. Everyone poops. Confused? YES. Amused? Slightly. Bewildered? Yeah that sounds about right. Mostly I just walked back with a blank stare on my face trying to figure out if I was the only person in the world these things happen to. 

"The shinbone is a device for finding furniture in a dark room."--Unknown


UPDATE:

Literally 2 days after I posted this I visited a friend in Ipswich and we decided to go to the zoo in Colchester. We were really excited that we got the chance to feed some elephants. I went up to the gate they were standing behind and presented my small piece of lettuce. The next thing I know I have elephant spit dotted across my sunglasses and my right cheek. I guess mother nature liked this post and decided to add another weird occurrence to this list. I can now not so proudly say I have been spat on by an elephant.

The Archaeology of Sheep

"Live as if you will die tomorrow. Learn as if you will live forever." --Mahatma Gandhi

For my Landscape Archaeology class we were assigned to carry out a survey of a site of our professors' choosing. We ended up driving to Cold Newton. It is suspected to be a Roman villa sitting inside a prehistoric enclosure. As we packed up the Land Rover it became apparent there weren't enough seats so one of us would have to sit in the back. The two professors got the front seats. Peter is about as tall as a tree so it was obvious he was not going to be squished. James is a pretty big guy and taller than me so he got the backseat and not the trunk area. Me being tiny... I like to call myself fun sized... got the small area behind the magnetometer, total station, rods, reels, ropes, tapes, resistivity stuff, everyone's bags and their shoes. Lucky me!

On the way to an archaeological site you generally learn that everyone has a blunt, crass and genuinely dirty side. We decided to tell awful pick up lines to pass the time. Here's a small sample:

"I hear you have some good earthworks. Can I survey your field?"

"I'm going to stick these probes all over that field."

"Those are some mighty fine probes you have there. Standard size?"

Yes I know we're gross, but it's entertaining and slightly awkward when it's around people who are going to be grading your papers.

We get there the first day and set up the baseline and start to survey the field and I was on resistivity duty with James, Peter and my professor Mark. We had to set up lines to walk evenly so the picture of what lies below is not distorted. One thing about that field is the poop... I have NEVER seen so much sheep poop in my life. If I was in a horror movie about poop this would be the mother of all site locations. Don't worry there isn't a picture for that. You're welcome.

Moving on... I have gotten stuck with a project that analyzes oysters from Dudley castle to determine change over time and where the oysters originated for various reasons. I have had to analyze over 6000 and have about 3 times more of that to do over the summer. This is how a casual conversation went during the dig.

Mark- (to no one in particular) "I wonder who that poor person is who got stuck analyzing those billions of oyster shells is."

Me- (shoulders slump, slow turn, desperately sad look on my face) .... it's me....

Mark- "wow you got screwed"

You know you have a crap task when a professor says that to you.

The next day was a torrential downpour like I had never seen before so we got the day off... but not before being forced to walk to campus and get the results of our previous surveys and then walk back.

We went out the day after once it had cleared up. Just picture a field of sheep quietly grazing in an English countryside. That's what it was like the first day. Not sure what triggered it, but the next day was the sheep version of Alfred Hitchcock's "Birds". EVERY sheep and there were probably 100 were running towards the flimsy gate baaaahing their heads off. A few of them even tried to ram their heads against the gate to try and open it. To an American this is alarming... especially one with a bad history with sheep. When I was younger I tried to pet a sheep and all it tried to do was eat my shorts I was wearing. I've never liked sheep since unless they are cooked and on a plate in front of me. I guess that's karma.

My reaction to this Hitchcock-esque sheep "attack" and the fact that I had to go into this field went something like this:

I remained unscathed and survived the sheeps' psychological warfare. Every now and again when I was standing by a hedge one would baaa at me in a strangely low tone out of nowhere. Not a reassuring occurrence. I think they knew I rather enjoy lamb.

As we surveyed the field we had to hold the cord that connected the machine to the probes in the ground. The other person not jamming the machine into the ground has to move the marker line another meter away to they can continuously survey. This being extremely boring decided to make it interesting. I would run along and move the lines which can only be described as doing what the ribbon twirlers in the olympics do then sprinted towards the other end of the field, did a limbo move under the other wire and people walking. I also performed zumba (I teach it) at random points of the day. Needless to say everyone was amused. Well minus my professor who I managed to entangle and trip... twice... good thing he has a sense of humor! Maybe there was a reason I ended up in the back of the land rover each time. Cool kid section? Yeah, I'll go with that. 

2 weeks later and I STILL can't get the poop off my boots. Stupid sheep.

We had one last day out in the field so I donned my stylish poop encrusted boots. I bet that's a pleasant mental image, but just imagine how I felt actually wearing them. We mapped out the entire field to get a topographical map. It went flawlessly with the sheep except for one encounter with a very determined lamb.  I had noticed a lamb had lost its mother and was running around the field making noise and exploring. I pointed it out to my friend Pete and at that very second it stopped, turned around from running in the opposite direction and looked at me dead in the eye. 

At this point it's about 50ft away from me so I'm thinking okay no big deal it's a lamb I've probably eaten ones bigger than this. I swear it thought I was it's mother. It ran at a full sprint right at me. At this point I am slightly uncomfortable on the inside, but trying to remain calm on the outside. This lamb aka undercover assassin stopped about 10ft from where I was and just stared at me and followed me around for 10 minutes. I'm convinced all it wanted to do was scare me. Mission: Complete. 

It's time for another one of my drawings.... Yes I know it looks like a fuzzy crocodile, but it was just as menacing. As a general warning to the public: Watch out for lambs. They have an evil side.

"The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read." --Mark Twain