Donkey-Maggedon!

Alternate Titles: “Ass Attack”, “Donkey Wrong”, “Mule Never Forget It!”

My friend Tami and I go on all sorts of fun travel adventures. Today we headed for South Dakota. The headline attraction was Wall Drug Store, the touristy mecca that was loaded with goofy photo ops. But first: DONKEYS!

Tami, you see, has been visiting the donkeys of the Black Hills for years. She brings hot dog rolls and other goodies to feed them. But on our previous trips to SD, the donkeys were nowhere to be found. I could only imagine from Tam’s description the experience of getting face-to-…uh…snout? with a donkey.

Today, I did not imagine. Before moving along in this story, let me tell you about my awareness of donkeys, using these visual aids.

Irritating sidekick donkey.

Hillbillly Donkey.

Clinically Depressed Donkey.

So, from this admittedly brief life experience with donkeys, I prepared for my first in-person donkey encounter. Tami gave me a bag of hot dog buns, grabbed one for herself, and we left the vehicle. Tam whistled and called the donkeys from their resting place at the bottom of a hill.

Say, have I ever told you about the difference between donkeys in April and donkeys in August?

In August, the donkeys have been fed generously by a constant stream of tourists and other donkey well-wishers. In April, the donkeys have not been fed generously. There is no stream of tourists. Therefore, when Tami whistled and called, a rapid series of events unfolded that went something like this:

–The donkeys came briskly up the hill and demanded nutrition. Tami began feeding some of the many donkeys who came to dinner .
-I meanwhile, found myself surrounded by the remaining donkeys and completely froze. You’ve no doubt heard of the human response known as “fight or flight”, in which a person faces dangerous situations by either engaging with the enemy or running away. In my case it’s “Fight, Flight or Freeze.” Guess which one I chose?

Okay, so I’m gonna be straight up here, and I apologize for the language but sometimes it’s just required: I had NO FUCKING IDEA THE DONKEYS WERE THIS BIG! Look at that monster! It’s a damn miracle he didn’t eat my entire head and spit out my (stylish as always) fedora.

Okay, so back to the running order of things:

-While cowering in fear I managed to throw my bag of hot dog buns to Tami. This did not keep the donkeys from, as the kids like to say, getting all up in my grill. But if you think, “Haha, that sap Wenty! Being a big scaredy cat while Tami calmly and patiently feeds the other donkeys.” Well…not so much.

–Still cowering in fear, I heard Tami fall down. It turns out the donkeys were being as rude to her as they were to me. Jackasses. (Sorry.) But seriously, these underfed donkeys were foul-tempered as all get out! One of them knocked Tam to the ground. I should have looked over to see what was happening, but again…cowering in fear. Then I heard a torturous scream from Tami! One of those rotten donkeys BIT HER FINGERS!

-Finally, I got in the car and Tam punched a donkey in the nose. Then we drove away. I think everyone should have a story to tell that ends with “punched a donkey in the nose. Then we drove away.” And now I have mine.

But the story isn’t over yet! Because following her encounter with donkey teeth, Tam’s ring finger was swelling up like a sausage. So before Wall Drug, we made an emergency stop to a friend of Tami’s who had a device perfectly suited for cutting off a ring.

Tami is the one on the left. The ring was removed, the finger was spared. So what have we learned from this adventure? Well, let’s see…

-Tami is quite possibly never going to invite me on an adventure again.
-I am terrified of all non-human living creatures. Actually, a lot of humans scare me too.
-Donkeys are very large, ornery creatures.
-Between my January hospitalization and today’s Donkey Smackdown, I appear to have cheated death twice in one year. I fully expect a grand piano to fall on my head sometime in the next five days.