When I found a porcupine in my yard a couple of nights ago while videoing the coyotes across the driveway, it never really occurred to me to do anything other than Facebook his picture…because what else would I do…until my friend Cindy suggested I should collect some quills for crafting.
And me being a person who would never actually do a craft, I thought, sure. Why not?
Cindy, who shall forever be blamed for what happened next…not myself for taking the advice but she for giving it…told me I should throw a pillow on him. She didn’t really give further instructions and being eleven-thirty at night it didn’t really cross my mind to think it through. Throw pillow…get quills. Simple.
And because logic and intelligence are rarely a part of late night escapades, I woke Billy and made him come along.
Armed with a tiny flashlight…because my children are frickin’ battery thieves…a pillow and a video camera, we ventured out into the dark of night.
With no real plan, we giggled our way into the grassy area behind the house and found the little critter munching away happily on some fireweed. I poised myself with the camera and cursed the tiny flashlight while Billy…with only mild pressure from myself…tossed an old pillow onto the unsuspecting porcupine.
At which point the porcupine did what any reasonable porcupine would do when attacked from behind by bedding. He freaked out.
Now I’m not really sure what I thought would happen at this point. Because the pillow did not just fall to the ground with a healthy supply of crafting quills…it embedded itself onto the porcupines back like a squishy turtle shell and securely held on as the porcupine danced in circles like a dog that’s not quite sure his tail is not his own.
And then the hysterical laughter began.
I sent Billy for my cell phone so I could photograph the sight and we snapped a few picture while contemplating what would be our next brilliant move. We knew it had to be a good one. After all, we were on a roll.
With only seconds to think as the little guy scampered about, I thought about what would happen if he escaped with his treasure. I imagined some fellow going home and telling his wife he’d seen a pillow cross the road in front of him and her telling him to stay off the bottle. Oh the ruckus it would cause in my neighborhood to have a pillow laden porcupine on the loose. We had to get it off.
And then, without warning, he took off into the night.
Who knew a porcupine could move at such a speed? I’d always thought of them as more docile creatures, lumbering about, always getting run over because they were too slow to step out of the way. But alas, apparently when pounced on by a pillow, their get-up-and-go gets a move on!
And where would a panicked porcupine flee? Why, into my shed, of course!
The excitement ended soon after as the assaulted varmint dropped his pillow at the door, as any good visitor would do, an disappeared in to the back corner of our bike shed.
As soon as we could breathe again and our squealing voices had come back to normal, Billy pulled the quills from the pillow and piled them into a dish. He’d missed one though, and after screaming homicidal promises while I tugged it from his hand with pliers, he stuffed the old pillow into the trash can so as not to risk any more surprises.
Our guest was gone by morning and all that was left was a tiny pile of crafting quills, Billy’s bloody hand, and THIS VIDEO! You can’t see much, but turn up the volume for a play-by-play and a good laugh cause what you can see worth squinting into the dark!!
(Forgive our squeaky voices…we were trying to whisper and be in hysterics at the same time…)
