A crazy and touching story: mother goose calls the cops for help.

Technically, she pecked at the patrol car door to get help and didn’t dial 911, but that’s only because she dropped her iPhone over Lake Michigan.

Let’s break it down and go deeper.

It’s perfectly believable that a bird would (a) recognize that its baby is in trouble and (b) realize it can’t fix the problem. The leap is in (c) coming up with the idea that a human could help and (d) pecking at the door of a police cruiser. The next step–(e) honking and getting the police officer to follow–is perfectly believable for anyone who’s seen a single episode of Lassi.

So let’s talk about the big, surprising thing, step (c), that a wild animal would think to ask for help from a human.

Here’s why it makes perfect sense: Every day, we’re learning that everyday animals like squirrels and crows are far smarter than we ever suspected. Any mammal or bird is probably smart enough to realize that humans run this place.

To animals, we are hairless space aliens who control the earth, the sky and everything around us.

We’re wizards and gods who travel in magical metal horses when we’re not flying across oceans, sending things into space or staring at tiny screens that let us tap into storehouses of wisdom and technology or communicate with any other human on the planet when we’re not playing Candy Crush.

So if you’re a mother goose, yeah, you’re not going to bug Mr. Squirrel, who’s busy burying nuts and wouldn’t help anyway.

And you wouldn’t honk at the stray dog who always chases you when he’s not peeing on every tree in sight.

In a time of ultimate desperation, to save your baby goosling (or whatever they are called), you’d ask for help from the weird two-legged wizards who run the place.