Shelley.

As I mentioned on my twitter feed, I was playing with the bison over the weekend here. I looooooove the bison. There is something noble and totally kick-ass about being a bison and having no serious predators. They are more dangerous than grizzly bears, fool! I discovered, through my ability to google shit, that bison killed and/or injured more people in Yellowstone than bears between some year and some other year. FIVE TIMES MORE! Suck it, Colbert.

Except the last time we were out here, not two weeks ago, we were chased by a bear. Well, less chased and more "heard it growl from about twenty feet away and, contrary to every single piece of meet-a-bear literature we have ever read, ran like eight year old girls yelling our heads off while reciting our wills aloud to one another". Guess what I learned? I can beat B in a footrace AND I'm apparently not getting his x-box when he bites it. Or a bear bites him. There are some things I'm just not willing to let him win on, and taking one for the team with a bear tops that list. I don't fucking care if that makes me a bad wife. I have a strict code about that and toenail growth.

So anyway. Bear last time. Bison this time.

I should tell you first. I have a stuffed bison at home named Shelley. I don't know why I started calling him Shelley (of course he is a boy, don't you know anything about bison?), but it fits perfectly. He will be named whatever he wants because no one will question his name without running into the batshit crazy side of the bison personality. Which is why, I'm .99% certain, they are docile for the most part. Hunted to near extinction because our ancestors wouldn't shut up about their non-gender-neutral names.

So we're headed out to the park and per normal B and I are having outrageous conversations about inane things (marriage building blocks) (foundation = mutual love of cheese). We get to the park entrance only to discover that the little machine entrance thing wants us to pay $7.80 to cross the invisible regular place-magic park barrier. And I'm livid because THAT IS HOW MUCH IT COSTS TO GET INTO BANFF AND THIS PLACE IS NO BANFF! IT IS A STUPID PROVINCIAL PARK AND HAS NO BUSINESS CHARGING THIS MUCH.

"*rantrantrantrant*"

".....Are you done?"

"That is all I have to say about that."

"It's a national park."

"NO IT IS NOT."

"It says so right on the machine. And the ticket. And the sign. And the NAME."

".....*insert about two minutes of silence*....well, it must be a typo."

"*martyred sigh*"

About five minutes after that?



I stared into that bison's soul and you know what I found?

He thinks $7.80 is a great deal. And I'd better drive the hell faster or he will roll my car. Done and done, Mr. Shelley. Done and...OMG B, THERE IS A BEAVER DEN SLOWDOWNSLOWDOWNSLOWDOWN.