Wildlife Documentary: The Rhino and the Cheetah

A return trip from across state lines is never quite as interesting unless you are committing a felony that incorporates verbage to the contrary (i.e. trafficking illicit cargo whether that be humans, drugs, firearms etc. Use you imagination.) You know -- don't cross state lines unless you have clean underwear. That's why I packed for the one night stayover. :p

Well, suffice to say, we hadn't done anything they could do us for when we re-entered Texan airspace. However, if you do find yourself on the business end of the criminal justice system for transporting [insert your poison of choice here] across state lines, never fear that hard-nosed hardass that has been allotted to "judge" you. Just remember that Johnny Depp said it best in Blow as your friendly neighborhood cocaine and marijuana trafficker, George Jung.

He said: "Well, in all honesty, I don't feel what I've done is a crime. And I think it's illogical and irresponsible for you to sentence me to prison. Because, when you think about it, what did I do? I crossed an imaginary line with a bunch of plants." He goes on to cite Bob Dylan as a source for his live-and-let-live philosophy. Of course, he still went to jail, but he looked good doing it. Anyway, I digress.

So, we arrived back in Houston to find the citizenry as ill-tempered and itchy-trigger-fingered as before we left. I say that, but you know, most of us are just trying to make it through the day. You see, it's the vehicles. They turn us into enemies, set us against one another, and then they give us a license to drive the damned things.

My casino campanion ducked down sidestreets when we entered the vicinity of his house. No point trying to be brave and stay on the congested major arteries of this pulsating behemoth we call home. Best to go the backroads and live to fight another day. Little did we know that it is those same lawless backroads of Houston that once in awhile yield the most interesting wildlife interactions, and I don't mean the cutesy tableaus of puppy dogs and kittycats sacked out asleep together in a barn loft somewhere -- not in the Houston grid anyway.

No, we wandered into a Mexican stand-off of sorts between a bewildered conscientious objector and an irate object of objection that must have been just begging for a reality show to come along and "discover" her. I mean, you don't go provoking rattlesnakes or calling them spineless (they have a spine, btw). Apparently, you shouldn't provoke ladies who drive red Corvettes either. It's not the car, per se. It is, in fact, the car's brightly-colored plummage that screams a warning to all potential adversaries that this mean machine is not to be f-ed with.

Of course, even the most erudite of wildlife experts could misinterpret one species for another. We can go back to snakes again for an analogy about coral snakes versus scarlet snakes. The only way that I'd survive that misunderstanding would not involve years of formal training. Rather, it would be because I remember the childhood limerick "Red by yellow, kill a fellow. Red by black, friend to Jack." Meanwhile, the guy with the degree is desperately trying to suck poison from his own ass before the onset of death.

Anyway, the stand-off began like this: We pulled up at a four-way stop. To our left was a van (forever after to be referred to as "Rhino"). In front of us was the infamous red Corvette (forever after to be referred to as "Cheetah"). My eye witness account will have to exclude testimony about who stopped first. I didn't see it. All I know is that the Cheetah wanted to turn and proceed in the direction that the Rhino was heading (the Rhino was to our left).

I was distracted, not paying attention. My casino chauffeur/buddy knew that he was last in the queue and so we waited. I looked up to see that the Cheetah had begun its turn at the exact same time that the lady driving the Rhino decided she had the right-of-way and started straight. (If indeed they did stop at the same time, she did have the right-of-way, btw.) They both came to an abrupt halt when they realized the other's intentions. For a tense moment, both were at stand still, arranged in such a way that the Cheetah was mid-way through it's turn and the Rhino would have collided with it if the Rhino had chosen to continue on its merry way as opposed to having stopped.

After hestitating briefly to ascertain the situation, the Cheetah took the intiative and, with cheetah-like reflexes that only a cheetah could possess, accelerated away from this dinosaur of the modern age. The Rhino responded with incredulity to the perceived slight. It let forth a spirited roar, a defiant challenge to the shabby treatment afforded it by this lesser creature of the wilderness (i.e. it honked its horn at her). Do not be fooled though, ye intrepid explorers, by the diminutive stature of this Cheetah in respect to the Rhino. (At this point, I'm gonna hand off to our field correspondent, ruby_commentator, for a firsthand account.)

[snotty wildlife programming voice-over on]
Note the upturned middle finger of Cheetah in response to Rhino's reproach. Remarkable! I think the female is indicating a readiness to mate! But then again, perhaps we are seeing an alternate, implied meaning in her gesture. Wait a second! The Cheetah has pulled over. A woman is exitting the vehicle. It appears that she has chosen to stand and fight rather than flee. She has now raised her arms in an bold, expansive display; indeed, this aggressive posturing is meant to make her size appear more impressive and intimidating to this would-be predator.
[snotty wildlife programming voice-over off]

Yes, she flipped Rhino lady off. Then, in defiance, she decided to exercise her right to free assembly in the middle of the road.

Remind me who the "would-be" attacker is again? Oh, that's right. It's a van. This presents an interesting set of options to the van/Rhino driver. I can only wonder what went through her head. Do I (a.) get out and enter into a discussion that at this point looks like nothing more than the formal prelude to hand-to-hand combat, (b.) drive around her and enjoy a rare glimpse of an idiot chasing my van on foot, or (c.) run this crazy woman down as a favor to all the world?

If it's fame she wanted, belligerently flagging down an approaching van that is being operated by a person that is still seeing red from an altercation they shared mere seconds ago... well, that'll get you a Darwin Award.

Sadly, we were never able to sort out the scene. For the most part, out of embarassment for her, we continued on down the road, but we almost wrecked our own vehicle due to rubbernecking. Like a morbid fascination, it is one of those sights that is repugnant and, yet, transifixes you. It's like staring across time at who we were before society lost it's sense of humor about conflict resolution. In other words... Catfight! Catfight! :p

Whenever I'm at a loss to explain a situation, I turn to cinema. There are several instances that come to mind that typify the feeling I had of watching this scene unfold. One is from Bill Murray's Quick Change in which Bill and a cadre of crooks accidentally wander into a bizarre ritual while they are lost in New York. They pull up to ask for directions. The man they pick is a stoic, older Hispanic fellow who is sitting on a bike in the middle of the street. He seems distracted by something up the road. They turn to see what has his attention. Another Hispanic man sits opposite him on a bike of his own. As if on cue, they begin to pedal ever faster towards one another with predictable results. That's right, they were jousting. They even had rakes and brooms in their hands to mimic lances. And what do you say to that?

Another is the movie Wonder Boys. In the particular scene, Michael Douglas, Robert Downey Jr., and Rip Torn are harassed by a gentleman they bestow the made-up name "Vernon" on. He's an African-American guy that they characterize as "president of the James Brown Hair Club for Men". He seemed to believe they were in his car and proceeds to chase them around the block, disappear down an alley, and re-emerge on the other side directly in front of them. After a beat, the exchange ends when he jumps on the hood of the car, leaving a large dent, gets down, takes a bow, and promptly runs off.

At a time like that, you just gotta go with Rip Torn's appraisal of the whole scene. His response was apropos. "What the hell was that?" *-)