Prairie Dog

This last fourth of July weekend I had an amazing weekend in Salem with my parents. On the fourth, I carried a notepad around with me to take notes- specifically for blogging purposes. Out of hand? maybe. The following is a true account.

It's about 6pm. And it's the fourth of July. And we're Ridderbuschs. We're drunk. My mom starts telling me about a recent weekend trip she and my dad took with my Uncle Randy and Aunt Sandy (yeah, really. Those are their names. Even better? My dad and uncles are Richard, Robert, Randal, and Ronald OR ricky, robby, randy, and ronny) On their drive they stopped at a bar. My uncle and aunt were familiar with it and walked right in. My mom took one step in and stopped. There was a moose head at the end of the room. My mother has a phobia of taxidermied animals. Anything dead and hanging on your wall/posing on your bookshelf? She's terrified of it. She tells my uncle, ' I don't think I can go in there Randy. I see a few more." He tells her she'll be fine/she can do it/ go team and she decides to be brave. She'll just drink. And not look up.
She's striding confidently into this bar and "there's a prairie dog RIGHT there in front of me, and it's all *imagine my mother, claws up thriller style with fangs bared*. So I backed up and got the fuck out of there." I love this image immediately and scribble down a description on my notepad. She tries to grab it from me (she's not a huge fan of me describing how ridiculous we are on the world wide web). She fails to get the notepad and continues her story. She went and sat in the car while everyone else had a drink.
At this point my dad, who was in the kitchen cooking (per usual) jumps in to describe the inside of this place as my mother was bounced out by a stuffed prairie dog and cannot give me all the details. Apparently, the walls are completely covered in dead animals. So are the shelves. The best part? The are ALL in attack mode. Every single dead and stuffed animal in this bar looks like it's about to rip out your jugular.
My mom jumps back in and makes a comment about the prairie dog. Apparently my dad hadn't been listening closely earlier because he asked "what prairie dog?"
mom "the one by the door"
dad "what prairie dog?"
mom "the one that scared me! the one that's all *thriller arms and bared fangs*"
dad "...you mean, the coyote?"
me "yeah. fucking. right."

...

let's just let that sink in.

My mother, ladies and gentlemen. I mean, I suppose in some ways that makes sense. It's dog like. And perhaps you could find one on the prairie?