Dancing with an umbrella in the rain, she

Dancing with an umbrella in the rain, she kicked her galoshes at puddles and managed not to spill her triple americano. This was the best day of her life...well, except for that

time she hit five green lights in a row. It was the little things that made her happy, like when her cat dragged in a dead possum for approval or the time she climbed the

broken down gutter behind the trash bins at the Cracker Barrel near highway 52. She remembered her own climb up that rusty metal, and the filthy transient waiting on the roof.

accent that said she was from the midwest. Tired of her roots, she took a bus to the bright lights and big city of Minneapolis. It was a dog eat moose world where she

was determined not to be the moose. She tried to blend in as a native by drawing out her vowels and pretending to despise the Lakers. She kept up appearances by

sporting a Celtics jersey and trying to start 'Beat LA' chants at coffee shops and grocery stores, pretty much wherever. Still, her antlers

outed her as a Milwaukee Bucks fan, and as a non-human. Her undercover operation into taxidermy head mounts was in jeopardy. She hid in the bed of a pickup with camo decals, hoping

to slip past the parking attendants at the tractor pull as a common redneck. It was the smell that gave her away. She tried stuffing a glass-eyed buck under her shirt, but in Milwa

kee things didn't work that way. The smell was too strong, and the buck was too big. The attendants saw her and pounced, ripping her soft, tender and very human flesh apart.