I Brake for ... What?

I recently spotted this bumper sticker on the car ahead of me: "I brake for artichokes." This puzzled me, as I've never come across an artichoke crossing the road, but I guess you never know - better to alert the drivers behind you in case the situation occurs. Myself, I brake for animals of any size, and of course all yard sales and anything labelled "FREE" left on the curb. (Truly, I've found some real treasures!) My husband brakes for groundhogs, but only to gleefully inspect the bloody carcass after swerving to hit one - but that's a story for another day...

Thankfully, in my small town, there are drivers who brake for goats.

I had taken the two goats for our afternoon walk in the lower field, collars around their necks and leashes (which I always carried but never used) around my waist. With tummies full of nutritious weeds, the boys bounded up the hill toward the deck for the customary "after-walk" teapot of warm water and bowl of apple chunks. (Bribery, I have learned, is a mainstay of goating.) That is when disaster struck - they approached the steps only to spy our small white cat sunning himself on the very steps the goats needed to ascend. Complete panic ensued as Elliot stopped short at the threatening feline in his path and then bolted off down the driveway, no doubt terrorized by visions of ferocious teeth and claws only inches from his fleeing rump - Emerson naturally followed, and soon overtook his charging brother. Why are we running, Elliot? Hey, we've never explored out here before! Let's just keep going! And there I am, hysterically screaming at them and shaking my pitiful container of animal crackers as they dash for the road, scary cat completely forgotten but now enamored by the thrill of the chase. Faster, brother, faster!

Anyone who has visited our house knows that, while we consider ourselves rather rural on three sides of the property, our front bank borders an extremely busy, high-speed thoroughfare, a common route for truck traffic and site of numerous accidents on the blind curve. Yes, that would be exactly where the goats were headed. Somehow, I caught up to Elliot, snapped on his leash and looped him around a tree branch, just in time to see Emerson run out into the center of the road. Hearing the ominous rattle of a truck crossing the metal bridge just before the curve, I willed him to keep running to the other side into the neighbor's cornfield - but that stupid goat just stood there, right in the middle of the road. Grinding screech of brakes...and as I reached the mailbox there was Emerson standing quizzically between a halted tractor-trailer from one direction and an SUV from the other, traffic backing up behind them. Out of breath, humiliated and quite furious, I hauled that scampy goat out of the road by his collar, waved politely to the drivers (oh, please don't be anyone I know!)  and dragged both goats back to the pen on leashes. No teapot, no apples for you! I considered locking the cat in with them, just for spite, but he had already run off, likely hiding from a mouse or a bumblebee.  

Maybe I'll ask the township for one of those triangular yellow signs - "CAUTION - GOAT CROSSING." I wonder if that's in the budget...