Saturday, November 08, 2008

my parents saw a chupacabra, among other things.

my parents called me today, and i thought they were calling because it's my step dad's birthday and it was mid-afternoon and i hadn't called him yet to wish him a happy birthday. sometimes they do that when i'm not quick enough to call them but it turns out that's not what they were calling about. they wanted to tell me they saw a chupacabra while driving through southwest texas. my parents are always seeing weird shit when they're alone, which is what i told them on the phone. my mom's response: but your grandmother was with us when we saw it! knowing my grandmother, that really doesn't help my mom's case because my grandma has been known to make up her own version of reality. i love her, but still. not exactly a reliable source.

for anyone not familiar with the legendary chupacabra, check this out. the artist's depiction makes it look like it's a half human, half spiky amphibious power ranger gecko thing. that's not what my parents saw. sadly, they didn't get a picture of it--they were reaching for their camera when it ran sauntered away, and i refrained from asking why they didn't follow it to take a picture if it was merely strolling--but my mom said it was more like a wolf-fox-dog hybrid. that sounds more plausible than other descriptions, so why not? she described it as skinny with long hind legs and a long tail. she said it looked like nothing she had ever seen. she didn't mention any spikes. or fins. good, good.

so this dog hybrid thing frequently makes it on my parents' local news station (definition of local: from a city three hours away), usually once every few months. and it's not so much the dog thing that's on tv as it is the people who spotted it, who describe the same dog hybrid thing that my parents saw and THEN call it a chupacabra (tomato, tomahto). when i was in middle school my town's local newspaper ran a front-page story with a VERY LARGE headline about the chupacabra striking again alongside a picture of a dead sheep. it's pretty embarrassing to admit that my hometown's one local news source touted a legend about a vampire dog that kills sheep as real news. this is why i don't go back there. this is why the town's population growth has remained stagnant for at least the last 20 years.

perhaps it likewise should be embarrassing that my parents now have claimed to have seen a chupacabra--they're actually calling it a chupacabra, which is funny--but i believe them when they say they saw something unidentifiable (and my grandmother can corroborate the story!). also, this doesn't strike me as all that odd since today's sighting is the latest in a list of other things my parents have experienced when no other credible witnesses are around, including (but not limited to) la llorona, which they heard but didn't see along the rio grande; a huge round metallic object with blinky lights silently hovering over them in the desert sky (glad i wasn't around for that since i probably would have fallen over dead); and the ghostly figure that wanders around their bedroom looking creepy, then throws open doors just to get the point across that it's really there.

2 Comments:

Blogger Amy said...

Sarah, you are on FIRE! I can barely keep your with your feed! Your blog went from dead to post, post, post, post. Craziness!

5:49 PM  
Blogger sarah said...

ha.

yes, this is what happens when i'm bored. :)

when i'm not applying for jobs, i'm blogging.

7:49 PM  

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