On the way to school this last week I quizzed the five-year-old Ballerina about how kindergarten is going this year. She reported that her favorite part was recess and that she likes science. She said the subject she likes the least is nouns, which is an oddly specific thing to dislike, but for the Ballerina that is par for the course. When I asked her what part of kindergarten she has disliked the most, she gave me a quick answer, “coyotes.”

This might seem like a strange answer, but coyotes have been big news in our neck of the woods lately. Over the last month and a half or so a coyote has attacked four joggers, one with injuries serious enough to require surgery, and there is even a viral video of the local police department chasing a coyote away from a jogger with their car sirens. All of this activity has happened close to the Ballerina’s school, and all of the kids are abuzz with coyote fever.

I believe the police officers of our community to be a top-notch group who overwhelmingly do an insurmountable job well, but the current hunt for the aggressive coyote seems to have our local law enforcement stumped. While I have never had a need to capture a coyote I feel that I have some genuine expertise in this matter, but no matter how many emails I send to the police department they seem to fall on deaf ears. First, I suggested that they just follow the trail of ACME catalogs to the coyote’s lair, but they never responded. Second, I pointed out that if they just put a fake road runner out they were sure to capture it, but they had not comment. Third, I sent in detailed plans for creating a small cliff in the area since coyotes are always prone to fall over cliffs, but once again no one paid any attention to my insightful analysis. Finally, in a fit of desperation, I submitted my best idea yet, painting the image of a cave on the side of a building and waiting for the coyote to run into it, but once again my idea seems too unconventional for people to see the wisdom in it.

At this point I think my efforts in trying to help the police capture the coyote are wasted. I guess I can always turn my attention to helping rid the world of nouns, at least the Ballerina would be on