Do You Want a Piece of Me?

This morning, while I was eating breakfast, the chickens started a ruckus.  I looked out the window to see what was the matter and I saw the gray fox again.  This is the fifth time I've seen it this summer.  I pounded on the window and it looked at the house but did not move.  I went out to the deck, barefoot, with my breakfast in my hand and yelled, "Git!" (sounding like Snuffy Smith).  The gray fox didn't git.  It stood there and looked at me from a spot in the yard right next to my rhubarb patch.  I went down the deck steps.  It still didn't move.  I yelled, "Do you want a piece of me?"  I get a little feisty in the mornings sometimes and it scares even me.  I walked very assertively toward it.  Like an animal trying to appear bigger, I swung my arms and flexed my biceps while taking the largest steps my sciatica will allow.  You know how when you are driving about 60 mph and when you take your foot off the gas pedal, the speedometer goes down quickly?  That is how my courage-odometer felt the closer I got to the fox.  What was I going to do when I reached it?  Give it my breakfast? Pet it?  Kick it?  Pick it up?  I got within 10 feet of it when it moved quickly away by my compost pile.  And then it stopped, turned around, and looked at me with an impudent air.  The nerve!  Up went my arms and I strode forward again, looking like a total fool carrying pita bread.  This time it strode through the sumac and poison ivy into the neighbor's yard.  My job was done.  I had scared a 10 pound fox off the property.