According to my mom, I’ve been stalked by a mountain lion for over a decade.

Let me begin by explaining a bit about my mom. She’s my best friend, my role model and someone I admire tremendously. I think she’s perfect (even when she’s not) and the greatest accomplishment I could achieve in life is to be like my mom. She’s highly educated (a doctor), extremely intelligent, very rational and level headed. She’s the person we ALL look to in a crisis and we all compete to impress. I’m not exaggerating when I say my siblings and I have fought for my mom’s affection and attention all our lives. Yet she has a few quirks.

For instance, ever since I turned 18 and went to college, she’s been convinced that a mountain lion has been stalking me.

This mountain lion is incredibly savvy and sly. It’s never attacked, never left evidence of it’s existence, never even been sighted. But my mom *knows* it’s there. She’s absolutely convinced it’s just waiting to get me alone to kill me.

Not that it hasn’t had ample opportunity.

Said ML has been following me city to city, state to state, country to country as I’ve moved across the US and Europe. It apparently is always there no matter what I do and where I go. It follows me 24/7, 365. It never leaves me. It’s just waiting, constantly.

Now this may seem like a long running family joke if it weren’t for the fact that no matter how irrational or silly, my mom is serious. She’s deathly afraid I’m going to die to a ML attack.

I recently emailed the family boasting about my biking prowess and immediately my mom called to ask me how many pepper sprays and weapons I carry with me when biking. I felt really guilty when I admitted I had only taken my car keys and cell phone on that trip.

I know she’s right. I mean, mountain lions aside, there are other dangers that are very real and pepper spray is a must. But she wants me to carry three (one for a fanny pack, one for the bike pack, and a back up in my shoe.) She also wants me to carry a baton and a pocketknife. Multiple ones for the same locations as above. Somehow I’m supposed to have an arsenal in my shoe.

She’s also stressed now about my dog, because how does the dog factor into the mountain lion attack? Will the ML attack me, forgoing the dog? Or will the dog be attacked? Apparently if I bike with another person, say my boyfriend, the mountain lion doesn’t like the odds and is unlikely to attack.

However there is light at the end of this long running tunnel. Apparently a mountain lion has been spotted in New Hampshire so I’m safe. I guess there is only one mountain lion in the US and if it’s stalking her then it can’t be stalking me.

I wonder if our family is the only one to have a personal, stalking mountain lion.

If not, watch out. I hear they’re vicious.