Everything about this post may be treated as comedic exaggeration.
The first thing that I don’t like about the goose is that its plural is geese. What lexical logic was employed to make a goose’s plural into geese? What was wrong with gooses?
I don’t like geese either; I mean as a bird. Not that they have harmed me in anyway. It is just that these days my morning walks coincide with their time of R & R. Dozens of them land around a rivulet that I walk past every morning around 5.30 a.m. Their vibe is one of menace and intimidation. With their craning long necks—excuse the ornithological pun (crane and goose)—I always feel they are sizing me up for a possible ambush. I am genuinely weary of geese. (There is some comedic exaggeration here as well.)
Soon after my quadruple bypass surgery, I used to wonder what might happen if one of those attacked me and I had to defend myself. With my sternum still weak then, a goose attacking me could do some serious damage to me. I have seen videos of geese and other birds attack humans and it does not look pretty.
So this morning when I saw the geese (See the photo above), I became particularly cautious even though they were on the other side of the road. They have wings, you know. They can fly across the road in less than two seconds and land on me as if I were their landing strip. (Comedic exaggeration.)
One of them, presumably a female goose or a dame as they are called (male is called gander) had four chicks walking behind it. They become particularly protective around their chicks. Their sense of danger is heightened. If they see a human too close, they might act. Or so I think.
There were two geese on my side of the road that flapped their wings as I walked past them. I am not sure if they were preparing to fly away or ambush me. Let’s say they were preparing to ambush me. After six months, my sternum is fully healed, and I could have fought them valiantly if it came to them. It did not. It turned out they were communicating with each other. Perhaps they were saying, “Look at this loser. He always walks around our territory.”
At the risk of being an ornithological racist let me say that more often than not all geese appear the same to me even though they are different on a closer scrutiny. Nature hates repeating itself.
A couple of times I walked a little later than my normal time and found that there were no geese at all, not one. Perhaps I should change my time rather than allowing the possibility of being mauled to death by gooses, I mean geese.
And now, a completely unfitting use of a popular saying here in America-- what's good for the goose is good for the gander. It broadly means what is good enough for a man is also good enough for a woman. They should be treated equally.