It started innocently, as all things that border unintentional illegal usually do. Or maybe that should read, personally, I usually set out on a mission with innocent intentions, but find the boundaries occasionally stretched in the name of getting things done, getting things right.

This story is about a goat. In my neighborhood. Evidently a new addition to the landscape and audio atmosphere of my personal stomping grounds. Despite my outdoor tendencies, let me just say, I live in a highly populated city neighborhood, not rural Idaho with the cows, potato fields and chickens announcing the arrival of the sun.

Crying. It got to me. The sound of wailing that closely mimicked a human baby. All (damn) day long. Bawlin and crying at a constant rate that curled my toes and pulled at my motherly instincts. At one point in time last night, the crying got so bad I did what any normal, sane human being would do I called the police , I twittered my annoyance across the Internet airwaves.

The twitter response was instant. Sympathetic tweets came pouring in from around the world. Disbelief, wonderment, astonishment, and a few, “you can’t be serious and I’d like to see that” tweets. So, being me —a risk taker, a no hold back fearless soul– with new high tech abilities in the name of a Blackberry cell phone capable of taking pictures (more on that evolution later) I tweeted that I was going on a mission to garner proof. I’d BRB ~

The source of my disbelief and annoyance wasn’t hard to find. Just follow the sound of a baby being tortured by unseen force’s. I pinpointed the exact house, the location of my (and the goats) torture. Envisioning a mission worthy of sneaky behavior, I scouted out the street looking for potential witnesses to my innocent mission. No one in sight. I turned my camera on, held it tightly in hand and slid down the side of the house resisting the urge to bend over or pull my shirt up around my face. I took the casual trespasser stance. Make it cool, make it normal. A smooth criminal. Nothing going on to alert suspicious behavior sort of stroll.

I suck as a criminal. I ran up to the fence, clicked my picture, ran back for the street. Nerves got to me. My face flushed red and I again looked for potential witnesses while quickly shooting off my prized picture to twitter. A crappy twitpic of a little brown blur standing in under-watered grass. Regardless, I had my proof. I was shall we say, victorious!  

It wasn’t good enough, in my humble opinion. I hate it when I don’t do things good enough. It will eat at me, bug me, torture me into cryin like that little goat. I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I needed better! I casually strolled back to the location of my recon mission and took a deep breath and went for it again.

Dude: “Hey, what are you doing.”
Me, and I don’t know what is worse, getting caught or what I said: “Twittering your goat”

Busted.

And now that I think about it, unless someone twitters, saying “twittering your goat” sounds pretty raunchy. It just jumped out of my mouth. Panic, you know. Now, I was trespassing, BUT the dude has a goat. If I know my city codes well enough, that makes him illegal in the eyes of the law as well. We were on equal ground. So there you have it, a twitterbird busted for taking a picture, and a dude harboring an illegal goat in a city neighborhood doing a stand off………

So I grinned, charmed it up, smiled my – you’re going to love me whether you feel like it or not grin — and made quick peace with the situation. I even got the picture I wanted and shot that off to twitter. No police were involved and I made a new buddy, not the dude, but that sweet little goat that belts out a soprano baby squeal.