Deer Season and Such:

It's deer season.

Probably not the shoot 'em up type, so you all with that innate urge to blow Bambi away, keep your guns and such stored away; I don't want to be responsible for your illegal jumping o' the gun. So to speak.

What I am referring to is the deer running parallel to my car this afternoon. I did not see her (I assume it was a her, there being an absence of antlers) until I was right alongside of her. Appropriate to what I have preached to that spouse o' mine and the boy and the daughters for seven long years now, I did not swerve or break, but did most certainly lay on my horn for at least one quarter of a mile. And she and I did not make our acquaintances in an untimely manner.

This would be contrary to the Car-Deer Episode #1 when that spouse o' mine nailed a very large deer (his words and my neighbors' comments) in our somewhat brand new Trailblazer. So sad. For the deer, and for us consumers who do not regularly purchase new cars.

And let's then fast-forward to Car-Deer Episode #2:  Daughter #1 had come home from college for the evening, and stayed late into the night before returning to her dorm room. I went to bed. The next morning, a Saturday (and I remember this well!), I was up making the morning brew when that spouse o' mine remarked that "Gill had a beer last night." I looked at him. And thought. And then said, "Well, ok." And he continued to look at me, his look growing allthemore askance. I stared back, puzzled. I thought, There are worse things than our daughter having a beer. But then that Spouse o' Mine repeated himself. And this time, the eau de coffee grounds must have snapped my synapses: "Gill hit a deer last night."

AHhhhhhhhh!

I was so upset. Yet the damage to her '88 Jeep was minimal. The damage to her mental well-being was greater, having to watch the deer flail on the roadside in its final minutes.

There are deer casualties all over the place, but worse are the human casualties from swerving and such. We live near two rivers, and our deer traffic from the woods to the rivers is regular. I tell all our evening guests, "Don't swerve, just nail them!" Not because I have a keen dislike for deer. On the contrary - I love our deer! But unless someone TELLS you this, your reflex is to swerve.

Just don't.