AAAAA!!! Deer!, Pt. 1

I used to like deer. I believed deer to be quiet, docile, vegetarian woodland creatures. I watched Bambi countless times as a kid. I berated people who cruelly hunted the helpless creatures down just so their families could eat cheap meat. But that was before I knew the true nature of the little doe-eyed monsters.

After driving a granny car - '92 Mercury Sable - through high school and college, my parents kindly bought me a “new” car – a '02 Toyota Corolla in the fall of 2003. I was so happy to finally have a newer car and not feel embarrassed when I drove my car to work each day. At the time I got the car, I was still living in Collegeville, which despite being a college town, doesn't really have anything. All major shopping had to be done in Big Town, some 30 minutes away. Ordinarily, I would wait for the weekend to make such a trip, but that evening I wanted to do something other than grade papers. So I hopped in my car that I'd only had a month and drove to Michael's to pick up some items for a lamp I was decorating.

Ironically, as I was driving in the early fall evening, I happened to remember an article in the previous Sunday's paper about how many wrecks happen in Georgia each year due to the malevolence of deer. I had never had any close calls with deer, so I wasn't too concerned. I scanned the radio stations in my car and found a station that was already playing Christmas music, despite the fact that it was early November. Madonna's version of “Santa Baby” came on, and I turned up the volume. Other than an annoying car that was blinding me with its headlights in my rear view mirror, life was good. Little did I know...

When I saw the monster in the middle of my lane, I at least had the advantage of being at the top of a gradually sloping hill. The fiend stood at the bottom of the hill in the classic deer-in-headlights pose. A large buck with a multi-point rack, I had the fleeting thought that my brother-in-law, a hunter, would be glad to shoot such a deer. I started to apply my brakes as soon as I saw the creature, hoping that it would come to its senses and run off into the woods that surrounded both sides of the road. I was glad that the road I was traveling on was completely empty save for my car and the annoying car right behind me, because I wouldn't have to worry about what a car in the other direction would be doing to avoid the deer. I thought that if I tried to swerve to miss the deer, in all likelihood, the deer would swerve too, so I'd just keep slowing down and stay straight in my lane. I managed to stop my car mere inches before hitting the deer. I was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when – SLAM!! - the car behind me slams into me and pushes me into the deer!

Will this be the end of our brave heroine? What about her new car? Does she ever make it to Michael's and finish her lamp? Tune in next week for the thrilling sequel to this saga!