That Time My Mom Really Pissed off a Moose

January 23, 2022

“Lindsay!”

Historically speaking, whenever my mom screamed my name, it was never a good thing. It either meant that I was in trouble, or worse yet, she was in trouble. Growing up on a secluded acreage with no vehicle for transportation, mom getting into “trouble” was a constant worry.

Dad worked up North on the oil rigs — commandeering our family’s only vehicle while leaving Mom, my kid brother Dustin and me alone in the countryside for weeks on end.

It wasn’t all bad — especially when you had a mom like ours. My mom is a natural-born actress. I have never known her to turn down a role in one of the living room plays I used to put on as a kid or not to demand a cameo in the videos my classmates and I would do for French class in our 8th-grade year.

She helped my friends and me make horror videos in the woods behind our house just for fun and always had the scariest stories to tell during sleepovers. When I was in kindergarten, she went to such lengths with her witch costume for Halloween my entire class began collectively bawling upon Mom’s entrance that morning.

I suspect my classmates — upon seeing me holding hands with this terrible green-skinned, straggly-haired monster — had thought she was capturing me for her witch’s brew. When looking at the other mothers, all dressed in frilly princess and fairy costumes, I couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to land a mother like mine.

“LINDSAY!” Mom’s screams were getting louder. So loud that I no longer could ignore them. I stuck my head out of the nearest window in our double-wide trailer, and directly in front of me was the back of a moose.

A moose!

“Lindsay,” Mom said, whispering because it seemed that the great beast of a creature was now paying attention to her. “Lindsay, bring me out the biggest pot and wooden spoon you can find from the kitchen. Come out the front door and around the house. Whatever you do, don’t try to walk past this big bastard!”

“Big bastard” — that’s verbatim.

I did as I was told but wasn’t sure what her end game possibly could be. Was she planning to boil the moose whole? No way the big bastard was going to fit into that pot!

I sidled up to my mother, who was still standing stock-still having a stare down with the giant beast before her.

“Mom,” I quietly asked, “Why don’t you just come inside and wait for the moose to leave.”

“This fuckers been eating my pea plants down to the roots! Trampling my lettuce and gobbling the carrot tops! After I’m done with him, he’ll never want to come ‘round these parts again.” My mother was talking in an old western John Wayne type accent, and I loved it.

What on Earth was she going to do to scare this thing away?

“Get inside now, Lindsay. I don’t want you to get stuck in the crossfire of this.”

I ran inside and set up a viewing station in the window. Then I heard what seemed to be a melodic beat echoing out from my mother’s direction. She was drumming the pot with her wooden spoon with expert rhythm.

Then the chanting began.

“Scram Moose — Vamoose! Scram Moose — Vamoose! Scram Moose — Vamoose!” The tone of her voice was low-pitched and hypnotizing.

This woman knows how to chant.

This may well have continued for hours, but it seemed the moose had other plans. I had only turned away from my view for a few seconds to look at the TV when I heard my mom’s pot clang to the ground, and she let out a scream.

The moose had given chase — apparently not a fan of chanting — and had routed her into the greenhouse where she was able to close the door and hide from her aggressor. There, she yelled out the tiny window assuring me that she was just fine and the moose would leave sooner or later.

“Lindsay!” she trilled, “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, Mom, I hear ya,” I said, wondering if other kids ever watched their mothers get chased around the backyard by a 9-foot tall beast that weighs in at roughly 1,200 pounds.

You’d think that we’d have all learned our lesson after Mom’s run-in the surrounding wildlife, but that simply wasn’t the case. Over the years, we’d all have our meet and greets with the Canadian moose.

Once, Dustin had to run at full speed the length of our very long driveway when meeting face to snout and startling the poor moose on his walk to the school bus. Another time I found myself half-drunk on peach schnapps, walking the train tracks to town and talking candidly to a moose who was walking alongside me in the ditch about all my teenage woes.

Life in the countryside was never dull, that’s for sure — especially when, at any given moment, your badass mom might be throwing down with a big bastard Bullwinkle.

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This post was previously published on Get Inside.

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