A Wild Goose Story

Ethan walked through the front door, his long, greasy hair pulled back in a pony tail, and announced, "I'm eighteen today!
That's right, I'm an adult now, just like you and I think you should start treating me like one!"
Sarah, a step behind him, called out, "Hey Mom!"
My beautiful seventeen year old daughter believed the sun rose and set on the shoulders of her six and a half foot tall boyfriend.
I smiled, and asked if they'd both had a good day, and cringed as Ethan reached his long arm around Sarah's shoulder, sneered a little and said, "Yes we did!"
He was so utterly young and so utterly confident and if I'd been twelve inches taller, I'd have rung his neck.

Our condo association, out of sheer frustration, finally called The Department of Environmental Management, who agreed to come over and handle the problem.
On the morning in question, six adults arrived in two vans, carrying six radios, and a very big net.
They spent the next five hours chasing one very scared goose, back and forth across the lawns, and by mid-afternoon, all involved were hot and sweaty and no nearer to catching the goose than they'd been at the start.
Around the time that children started arriving home from school, a goose with a plastic six-pack ring digging into his neck, watched six adults climb back into two official-looking vans and drive off.
The goose was tired and hungry and the plastic ring on his neck was digging in deeper than the day before.
It was making him bleed.

For two weeks we watched an injured goose struggle to breath, and members of the condo association said they wanted to cry.
One evening, as we sat down to dinner, something furious began pounding on our front door, and before I could answer, Ethan burst in, all yelling and excited, "Hey, give me a pair of scissors!
Hurry up, there's a goose outside with one of those soda six pack ring things around its neck!"
And Sarah, who could have said, "Duh," but who had turned the goose problem over in her mind, so many times, simply said, "Okay."
They herded the goose up against the side of a building, and slowly, slowly backed him into a corner while Ethan, knowing that he had to do it right the first time, or the goose would get spooked and fly off, held his long arm steady, and grabbed the scissors tight.
And then pinch me I'm dreaming, as the front door banged open, and a terribly tall eighteen year old took one giant step inside, holding aloft a dirty, gray, grimy piece of plastic while the seventeen year old high pitched voice behind him cried, "Look Mom, we did it!"