That time our buffalo escaped....

The box fans were doing their very best in the corners of the sanctuary as Pastor Winston’s sermon surpassed the 20 minute mark. My brother was sitting next to me crossing out words on the bulletin’s weekly gospel passage to make a silly new story. Grandma nudged Grandpa to wake him up as Aunt Mary and Uncle Bo’s heads turned ever so slightly toward us from two rows in front. Aunt Lucy and Mom were each finishing up their grocery lists on the back of the insert with the day’s prayers. And my sisters and I stared blankly out the tall, narrow church windows, praying for a breeze to come through the impossibly tiny screens at the bottom - probably the only genuine prayer we’d said that day, to be perfectly honest. (Sorry, Pastor Winston!)

Another typical Sunday in the bustling village of Upton (population: 50ish). The four and a half families that made up our congregation were out in full force, sporting our rural Sunday best: “good” jeans, the flannels without holes, golf shirts, modest house dresses, maybe some earrings and hairspray - all the best finery Target and Kohl’s had to offer. I sat there preparing my opening statement for the sure-to-come debate over whether we should go into town to Arby’s or make the 30 minute trek all the way down I-81 to Wendy’s for lunch. (On Sundays we went to the fancy fast food places. McDonald’s would suffice for the odd weekday night or special breakfast stops on the way home from the orthodontist, but this was the Lord’s day, goddammit!)

I watched as a fly buzzed against the window. I seethed with jealousy as yet another (probably well air conditioned) car drove by. My eyes slowly glazed over into a deep boredom that could almost be mistaken as Zen.

That’s when it happened.

As I stared out the window, a movement in the corner of my eye snapped my vision back into focus. I shifted and leaned to look out the window three rows in front of me and saw what had caught my eye. Oh, I thought disappointedly, it’s just a buffalo. I sighed and went back to watching the fly briefly before my heat-baked brain caught up. Wait. What the hell?!

Uncle Bo and Aunt Mary both stood up and looked back at us. Grandpa woke up with a start and looked to see what the fuss was about. Pastor Winston stopped talking just as the whispers started to grow and the other three and a half families all turned to look at us. “Shit! Someone call Joe!”

Everyone on our side of the sanctuary jumped up and into action. If the buffalo had happened to look in the windows as it sauntered by it might have thought we were a very different kind of church than we actually were. Pentecostals didn’t have shit on the tongues we were speaking that Sunday!

Aunt Lucy jumped up and headed out toward her truck “How the hell did she get out?!” Phone calls were being made to anyone and everyone within a 10 mile radius who might have a pickup truck and a gun at the ready - which was pretty much every household within the 10 mile radius. My sisters and I pressed our faces against the window to see which way the buffalo went. And without needing anyone to say anything, we knew that our family was excused from the rest of the church service.

The buffaloing buffalo that barged past our church service belonged to us.

Well, not necessarily to us, per se, but to my mom’s cousin Joe whose field was right across from our house, which was right down the road from the church. (Ah, country life....) So, for all intent and purposes, the buffalo was our responsibility. And it had somehow escaped its electric fence, crossed the road, and was now wandering around outside our church.

It should go without saying that a fully grown buffalo can - and will - fuck shit up. Fortunately the kids that were small enough to be spared from enduring the full monotony of the church service were safely inside the nursery. But it sure did scare the bajeezus out of the tween who was in charge of watching the toddlers when she turned around to see a fully grown buffalo looking in at her. Someone asked if she saw which way it went. She wordlessly pointed toward the back of the parking lot.

Which also happened to be the same direction as the highway.

All hell broke loose. Cell phones were fumbled out of pocketbooks. Toddlers’ ears were covered. People ran from window to window trying to catch a glimpse of the beast.

“Jesus H. Christ!”

“I’m calling the cops.”

“What are the cops going to do?!”

“Well who are you gonna call?!”

“Ghost! Busters!”

“NOT NOW KIDS!”

“Joe, it’s headed toward the highway!”

“It’s gonna diiiieeeee.” Nobody had time to explain to the wailing toddler that the buffalo wasn’t exactly being raised for a petting zoo.

My eyes grew wide as my middle school brain translated the whole thing into a horrible math word problem. “If a 3000 pound pickup truck with a ‘Git-R-Done’ bumper sticker is driving south at 72 miles an hour and a 1200 pound buffalo is running north at however the hell fast a buffalo charges, how big of a splat is created when they collide?”

Just as I was running those morbid calculations in my head the first round of backup arrived.

Well, sorta.

I ran toward the back parking lot along with my siblings just as Uncle Bo, our mom’s cousin’s husband Randy, and our mom’s other cousin’s husband Steve, rode by in Randy’s pick-up truck with rifles at the ready. (Ah, country life....)

The modern day cattle drive was on!

It took Joe, who lived up on the mountain, a good 45 minutes to get down to the fields. In the meantime, three more truckloads of uncles, cousins, uncle-cousins, unrelated neighbors we called cousins, and neighbors who were just neighbors that we definitely did NOT call cousins all joined in the hunt. Eventually they were able to track the buffalo just past the highway. It wasn’t actually that hard since every extended family member in the area was getting calls from neighbors down the way asking if we knew that one of our buffalo had gotten loose and that it just ran through their yard. (Ah, country life....)

By the time the authorities arrived (and by “authorities” I mean the game warden - obviously) the hunting party had the buffalo surrounded. Unfortunately, herding a single buffalo without the influence of an actual herd is nearly impossible. Especially when it’s angry and freaked out enough to charge at anything that moves. Upon arrival, the game warden confirmed that there was only one way to go about handling this situation. The following week’s post-church lunch debate was settled right then and there: barbecue it would be!