I Have Never Michael Vick-ed a Goat

Come say that to my face, goat! What!

Goat attack, disarming a prisoner wielding a shank, preparing for Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” to actually happen–when people ask me what motivated me to lose all the weight, I usually respond with one of these three reasons, all absolutely ridiculous but completely true.

I first began thinking about how to survive a goat attack about a year ago when I heard about a man who was gored to death by one in the Olympic National Forest while on a hike with his wife. “I’ll fuck a goat up,” I pledged to Jaime as she rolled her eyes and continued telling me what happened, how the goat unprovoked grew aggressive and attacked. Jaime had been wanting to get goats, so she could make cheese with the milk, showing me so many YouTube videos of goats doing cute shit, like this one here and here (Admittedly, pretty damn cute.), in order to convince me of their potential contributions to our home and our mental well-being.

By telling me the goat attack story though, Jaime had inadvertently given me another reason why I would not allow goats in my home, as if eating garbage, peeing in their own mouths and always having to be on top of everything wasn’t enough. Not only would goats be banished from our home, but figuring out how to beat the shit out of one if it happened to attack me became a slight obsession.

So naturally, I went back to YouTube in search of “goat attack” videos, a search term that earns a surprising number of results, about 2,000. Some of these are drunks play fighting with goats, all fun and games until someone gets gored and can’t stop the bleeding because of all that PBR, or dumbasses fucking with goats (These people deserve a horn in the ass.), and then there are the actual attacks, like my favorite video called Kid Owned by Petting Zoo Goat, which I’ve both “liked” and “disliked” and viewed several hundred times.

This video, like disarming a prisoner (Come on–you’ve watched at least one episode of “Oz,” right?) or readying for the end of the world, whether it’s how Cormac McCarthy or Harold Camping see it, comes to mind often when I’m exercising and more so since we found out Jaime has a tater-tot-loving baby beast developing in her uterus. When I’m at the end of my run or a vigorous bout of weightlifting, the “I Am a Champion” speech blaring through my headphones, I think about that goat and that little boy and think, “If a goat has beef with my kid, I’m going to beat its ass.” Same goes for shank-wielding prisoners and the end.

These feelings of aggression aren’t necessarily new to me. I have been in a few fights during my school years and a couple of almost fights at various sporting events as an adult (Something about being a Yankee fan inspires full-grown adults to spit on or throw things at me.) But the difference between this feeling and your run-of-the-mill bro-style aggression is that it’s not about defending my honor or trying to be a tough guy–it’s about protecting my kid and his mama, as instinctual as the wanderlust that forces goats to climb to the highest heights they can find.

Goats, beware.

Knowing I’m in the best possible shape when that goat comes goring gives me a sense of relief, and understanding exactly what I’d do in that situation–either hop on that goat’s back and deliver an MMA-style choke-out or drop a swift kick between its goaty eyes–makes me feel at ease. So when that chance encounter comes, I’ll be ready to drop that diaper bag and get all Bruce Leroy on that goat’s ass.

Now about the end of the world…

[Please note: No goats were harmed during the writing of this post.]