The Front Lawn Chupacabra

Salem, New Hampshire: hotspot for unknown creature sightings since I decided to make up this statistic.

I was out walking my dog the other morning when I happened to noticed this in the snow in my front yard:

I know it's a little hard to see because it wasn't really light out yet and I don't have a Smartphone because I'm wicked cheap.

But there were these footprints in my front yard in the snow and..

..THEY WEREN'T NORMAL.

You can maybe get some scale as to them with my house in the background but maybe this will help:

OMG hitting that house with the water balloon was hilarious but mainly because we were SO SHITFACED.

Anyway, so - yeah - these footprints are not ONLY 8 feet apart but also IN SINGLE FILE and obviously NOT made from anything with 4 legs.

Here. Maybe this will give it some better scale:

Honestly, I can't explain why there would be a set of male genatalia strolling through my yard but since they're next to a set of human footprints I can only assume that Lorena Bobbitt is up to her old tricks again.

So later that night my kids and I were outside in the front yard in the freezing cold looking for meteors when I remembered about the footprints.

Me: "OH. Guys. Check THIS OUT."

I showed them the prints. Not the penis prints. I didn't feel like getting into that conversation with a 9 and 12 year old.

The other prints.

Son: "What is it?"

Me: "I don't know. But look how far apart they are."

Then I jumped from print to print. Barely. I'm so goddamn short I can't stand it sometimes.

Me: "I'm guessing it's a chupacabra."

Daughter: "What's a chupacabra?"

Me: "It's a mythical creature of Latin America. It's like a giant lizard thing on two feet or something..huge teeth..scales."

Son: "Really?"

Me: "Really."

Then I paused again.

Me: "OH. LOOK."

Daughter: "What?"

Let me stop here and tell you that my daughter has had this habit of playing practical jokes on me lately. Most of which I'll probably outline in my second book, "OH MY GOD STOP PLAYING PRACTICAL JOKES ON ME."

So I pointed to the trail of prints.

Me: "Honey. It looks like it's going right up to your window."

She didn't sleep well that night.

Probably because I showed her this artist's rendering just before bed:

That'll do, dad.

That'll do.

On a side note, they're still too young to see the one I did of the Abominable Penis tromping through the snow.

Equally as scary.