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Tuesday, October 28, 2014

827 Lives*

Our favorite test dummy, the coyote, survived his fall off the cliff!  We don't know how. The field engineers performed detailed calculations to conclude survivability was .05%. This is reinforced by the fact the coyote was not wearing any safety gear whatsoever. He didn't even have all of his fur since we shaved most of it in the name of aerodynamic efficiency.  

The coyote was spotted a few weekends ago.  Because our experience has taught us that eyewitness testimony is unreliable, I waited until a third party could corroborate the sighting before posting about it.  It has been difficult to confirm that the witnesses have spotted a coyote, and not a strange dog.  I couldn't keep quiet after some pictures made it online. The witnesses were all consistent with their stories and claimed the coyote appeared emaciated, haggard, had large amounts of fur missing, and had trouble walking because he was wearing what appeared to be rocket shaped roller skates on two of his feet.  That detail wasn't public knowledge, and someone would have to be deranged to concoct a story about seeing something like that, so we knew we had our coyote.  He was spotted near the country club and the witnesses  speculated that he may have been applying for membership.

This coyote must have figured out a cheat code to gain unlimited lives or invulnerability because there is no way it should have been able to survive the fall off of that cliff, especially since it had two explosive rockets attached to its feet.  Maybe that was our mistake.  We only supplied skates for the coyote's rear feet, and not all four.  Our mistake may have been in assuming that it could stand on its hind legs and balance.  That might have been an erroneous assumption on our part.  Every single time we start making assumptions, bad and sometimes terrible, awful things happen.

We were unable to confirm the coyote's membership status because the club has refused to comment.  AcMo was denied a corporate membership on several previous attempts, so we can't just pop over there to see for ourselves.  We do have clients who are members, and since we are always driving our client's vehicles, perhaps we can sneak our way into the club in a customer's vehicle to confirm for ourselves.

A country club is not the ideal environment for a wild animal that lacks opposable thumbs and can't play tennis or golf.  It is curious why the coyote would even attempt to join, but we don't understand animal psychology any better than we understand human psychology.  Just thinking about some of the modifications that would be required to make the club safe for the members makes me believe it would be cost prohibitive.  There would have to be a special locker room for the coyote because it can best be described as anti-social, if not downright dangerous, for example.  A secure facility like that would be far easier to locate than attempting to query every member I encountered.  I would get introduced to security by the second member I questioned, if not sooner.  Security already knows who I am, but I could wear a disguise that might give me a bit more freedom to maneuver.  Perhaps I could dress myself as another coyote and just pretend that I'm a guest of our test coyote.  Now I'm getting onto the right avenue.

We could mobilize our own security team and post up on a covert surveillance mission until we caught the coyote coming or leaving the club.  I just don't know if that is a wise allocation of AcMo's resources.  Even if we confirm the coyote survived, that knowledge can't be converted into an actionable plan.  It isn't like we can talk the coyote into coming back for additional test runs with the rocket skates.

What we need to do is catch that road runner and use it as bait.  With its loud mouth, it would only take minutes of it meep meeping before the coyote found its way back here.  I think the best way to catch the road runner is to use the coyote as bait.  Since the road runner enjoys taunting that hapless coyote, I'm confident we can use both of them against each other.  Maybe I do understand animal psychology.

I can sort of identify with the coyote's plight. It has been trying so hard to adapt rocket booster tech to increase its speed to give it a fighting chance to catch the road runner, but hasn't come close yet. In a lot of ways that coyote's quest is AcMo's. It is either admirable or crazy that the coyote has had an unknown number of near death experiences and hasn't quit yet.  There is a lesson to be gleaned from the coyote's bravery, stupidity, lunacy, or determination (pick any that you think apply).  Once I figure out how to characterize its attempts, I'll have an idea what the lesson might be.


*Estimating the number of lives a coyote has remaining is a complicated endeavor. There is no definitive method to establish how many lives were lost prior to meeting the coyote. We plan to start asking the moment we have the AcMo Universal Translator® operational. I must depend upon my keen observational skills, wit, and knowledge of animal aging progressions until that time. I hope that explains the situation if it becomes clear I was off by six hundred or more lives. 

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