I had an interesting afternoon

[Toph]

Okay, I needed to mow. 'Cause my property is big, I have a riding lawnmower that's kept in a shed adjacent to the wellhouse behind my house.

So, I get dressed in ratty cloths, get my boots on, get my mask on (I have severe allergies, I wear a mask to help me breath while I mow), and then at the last second I see my work gloves. The last time I mowed, the steering wheel got so hot in the sun it burned my hands, so I grabbed them as well.
Stepped outside and closed the door. Realized I locked myself out.
This is not an issue, I'd anticipated this years ago as I have a habbit of immidiately locking the door as I step out, no matter what, so I had a spare house key made years ago, to place on the keyring for my shed. (It's a great habbit, as long as you have a key!)
So I went back and forth whether to bother unlocking it or not. Usually makes no difference, right? Well, for some reason I felt I should unlock it now. So I did. Walked off the porch, lokked down and started to pull my gloves on while I walked.

Walked around the corner of the house, with my head down, pulling on my gloves, happen to glance up to find myself nearly walking right into...



...a bull.



Yes.


A bigass bull.
He looked up and stared at me, I stopped dead and stared back at him.

What. The. Hell.

I start slowly walking backwards to the porch. He starts slowly walking towards me. Not gaining ground, but not allowing me to put any distance between us.
I tried to backwards climb onto the porch (It's hip high), but that end of it wasn't quite finished when it was built. It still needed one more plank of wood. Wasn't an issue for me, but my dad is a visual perfectionist. Doesn't matter that he doesn't live here and doesn't see it.
So at some point, he came along and stuck a plank of scrapwood there at some point, without me knowing, and never even bothered to ancor it.
So I start trying to climb backwards up onto the deck, that plank goes flying, and nearly sends me crashing to the ground in front of this bull.
So I manage to get to the side of the deck and climb up.

Now mind you, the bull was calm. He never made any truely aggressive moves, but neither did he seem to be peaceful. He was very tense. On the deck, I positioned myself by the door, now thankfull I unlocked it. He walked on passed to stand under the two trees on my front yard, which is near my porch. He kept his eyes on me, I kept mine on him.

I called my mom to call the local police (I don't have their number). So we stand there having a staredown for the next ten or so minutes. If I move or look away, he starts walking towards me. It's not a big deal, as I can get inside now. But, I seem to be keeping him in place, and wanted him to stay there for the police.

Anyway, ten minutes pass, and the police show up. I think he's gonna charge their car for a minute. But the officer tells me they've been looking for this bull for weeks, and he's going to drive up the road and talk to the people he thinks it belongs to. As soon as he leaves, the bull starts heading down the driveway, and then cuts across my mom's place. I get in my car and follow it, so I'll know where it is when the cop returns. I track it across two or three other properties, down over to a different driveway.
Spend the next thirty minutes doing this.

So, once I feel it's suffeciently safe enough for me, I go back up to my place, get out my lawnmower and start mowing.

Finished up a couple hours later, come in and shower. And over the couse of the rest of the afternoon, realize my air conditioner is no longer working properly.
Just figured out it's frozen solid, so I have to spend the rest of the night with no air, in texas summer, letting it thaw out.

An interesting afternoon, indeed.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

A very interesting afternoon indeed. That rarely happens to those of us living in cities. Thank you for sharing!

(Clicks 'Exalt' button.)

Martin

[Andy Turnbull]

Indeed.

That trumps my afternoon!

Andy

[Stomski]

I'm surprised the cops arrived, the steaks were too high.

[Toph]

The story continues!

I never could kick my air conditioner back into service. Everything I did it kept freezing over into a solid sheet of ice.
Triple digit tempuratures forced me to abandon my own home, and go live with my parents.
And their hyper active jack russel terror... er... terrior. Who is all to happy to wake you up at three in the morning with kisses inside your mouth.

Anyway, so the next few days after that are uneventful, until wednesday, beginning my father's two days off. In the meantime, I've started to evacuate some of my collection which is beginning to melt (My DCUC, some did not fair through this well at all)
My dad decides to ride me pretty hard the next several days because I'm not willing to go work a part time position at a best buy forty miles away. (So I've been extremely depressed since the bull)
Anyway, we live in a rural area, and he has a pretty big work shop set up, with a car port out in front. There's a tree that's half dead, he worries about the top breaking off and collapsing on his shop. The tree leans over fairly close to the shop at an angle, and the dead part starts about 20' up.
My father is a cheapskate, and doesn't want to spend any money to rent a lift ($100) that could bring him up there to cut it down in pieces, or hire a professional crew that could come take care of it.
We go out there early wednesday morning, and he decides to attach a cable to it. He wants to see how hard it would be to throw a rope over it, and he throws a bolt up ther. It's about 5 lbs. Bolt lodges itself up there.
His plan it to attach a cable to the branch, attach cable to his truck, and I pull the branch away while he cuts it off.
I tell him the physics involved in this plan is sketchy at best, and not likely to work. Go get that bucket.
As always, I'm ignored. We go with his plan.
He gets a smaller nut, ties a rope to it, and we throw it over the branch. As I'm lowering the bolt down to the other side, I realize out rope isn't long enough. So as we're tying another rope to it, the bolt comes down and slams into his right shoulder. From my angle, I think it hits the back of his neck.

He can barily move his arm. I beg and beg him to let me take him to the hospital. He says no. Says it's only just bruised. I say the bone could be broken or fractures, or his shoulder dislocated and we'd never know it, that he needs to have a doctor look at it. He says no.
He can barily get off the ground, and finally consents.
I put everything away, and take him to the hospita. We wait two hours, for the doctor to come in and say it's only bruised, nothing serious. Charges $100. (This is always the way. Everything goes his way. He always gets what he wants, and everything always turns out exactly like he says. It's infuriating.)
So now he's somewhat mad at me for making him go.
He can't do anything for the rest of the week as per doctor's orders, and has to call in to work friday. So he's annoyed at that, and annoyed with me. And still out the $100.

Anyway, by friday I'm about ready to get an assault rifle and find a tower somewhere to climb. And I think they finally sense this, and saturday afternoon finally call the air conditioner repair man.
Guy comes out at 6pm that night, just a couple hours later and fixes it. All it needed was freeon.
Sunday, a week after I see that damned bull, I move back home. (This was a week ago)

The tree is still up.

[Stomski]

Wait... what?

You have enough land to warrant a sit on lawnmower and don't have a job? And you're worried about your lack of freeon for your air conditioner?

[Toph]

It's my parents property. And lack of freeon in an air conditioner can destroy it.
I don't own anything except my car, my TV, my computer, and my collection, which has steadily been growing smaller as I sell stuff off (Like my SG collection)

[Shockprowl]

Many man points for confronting the bull!