[Posted by James Byrd, VP, Logical Expressions]
One of the ways I like to get exercise and de-stress is by walking down to our mailbox. That may not sound like much exercise, but it is about a mile round trip, and there's a hill involved. Let's just say it is a nice adjunct to other exercise activities.
I bundled up and tromped my way out the door this morning and headed down the road. We got about two inches of snow last night and it was still snowing, so everything had that winter wonderland look again. The trees were freshly flocked and the dirty berms had been temporarily blanketed white again. The beauty was a little soured by the fact that Spring is supposed to arrive in a few days, but it still made for a brisk and lovely walk.
I decided to relax and enjoy the beauty of the falling snow, and I got into my stride. My stride faltered though, when I rounded a corner of the road and saw fresh moose tracks on the ground in front of me. I mean really fresh moose tracks. I stopped immediately and looked around, but couldn't see anything. We have trees along the road and snow berms that are still about 4 feet high, so it is hard to make out things that may be along the road.
I proceeded cautiously. I saw that the tracks had come my way and then doubled back, so I figured the moose had seen me and wandered off, or the tracks weren't as fresh as I thought. I was able to scratch the second theory after about ten more steps. The moose was in the trees to my left and he moved as he heard me approach. I say "he," but I'm not actually certain of the gender.
Now, I've run into this guy before. I went snowshoeing a few days ago and found him wandering around on a road that runs through our property. When he heard me then, he moved away and stopped to keep an eye on me. Since he didn't move far, I chose to skip the road and go far around him through the woods, hoping he didn't have any interest in chasing me off.
This time, I was a lot closer to him before I saw him. Like, about twenty feet. When he moved in the trees, he moved away from me and looked like he might head out across the meadow. I thought "great, he's off the road, so I'll just be cool and walk past unthreateningly toward the mailbox."
I think he misunderstood my intent. As soon as I took a few more steps down the road in his direction, he jumped fully around in the snow and squared off against me, with his head lowered. Now, I don't really know much about interpreting moose body language, but the shot of adrenaline I got at that moment told me everything I needed to know. So much for walking to the mailbox.
I turned around and walked steadily away from the moose, occasionally looking over my shoulder to see if he really wanted to give me a hard time. But, lucky for me, this moose is more defensive than offensive. He'll stand his ground, but he isn't particularly aggressive (at least, not at this time of year.)
Grumbling to myself, I headed back to the house. I named the moose Dennis at that moment, as in "Dennis the Moose Menace." I figured I'd go get the car and try again.
I drove back down to the mailbox, and this time, Dennis popped back onto the road and started trotting away in front of me. When afraid, moose will sometimes do really dumb things and can hurt themselves, so I stayed way back to let him figure out where he wanted to bail off the road. A neighbor friend of mine took over the herding task at an intersection, and he escorted Dennis along past the mailboxes, which left me free to complete my original task.
When I came home and walked up the stairs to the front door of the house, I had to laugh. Right there to the left of the doorway is a nice metal welcome sign we got from Coldwater Creek. It is in the shape of a moose.
The business moral of this story: You really do have to be careful about how your marketing messages may be interpreted, if you want to attract the right customers.