Please Read This

This week, some meanderings about things that go bump in the night. . .and, maybe, whatever else happens to tickle my fancy.

First up, let's ponder one's mortality. In this case, the mortality we would be pondering would belong to your writer, who is indeed glad to be able share this with you.

Last Thursday evening, I made my weekly jaunt to the local grocer.

Purchases included such exciting products as kitty litter (for multiple, and that's multiple, not multiplying) cats, pickles (not for the cats, 'cause that could lead to a situation involving a pickled puss, and we all know there's nothing worse that that), low-fat cottage cheese (again, not for the cats, unless the big yellow one starts sneaking around after The Other Half has fallen asleep on the couch and left a half-eaten bowl of curds in the way), English muffins (a manager's special) and some other stuff.

After finishing my grocery store expedition, I loaded the goodies in the trunk of the car and headed for home.

I motored through metropolitan Anna and just made it into the suburbs. Midnight Oil's "Beds are Burning" was playing on the cassette deck. (Yes, my car still has a cassette deck. Don't know what a cassette is? Ask you great-grandparents.)

Just as I was coming into a curve on the outskirts of Anna, there it was. . .

. . .bigger than life. The size of a small elephant, I'm pretty sure. Moving from left to right in my field of vision.

I tried, desperately, to slow and turn enough to the left to miss the deer.

The sad, and perhaps desperate thing about the whole situation, which only took a few seconds to unfold, was that I realized there was absolutely nothing I could do. My fate, at that particular moment in time, was to hit a big, dumb, furry mammal. And, so I did.

THUMP.

Bambi had done its best to become my car's new hood ornament.

I'm convinced that I saw an image of a deer's backside go airborne and that the critter did a somersault. Maybe. Maybe not.

It occurred to me later that I might have been better off if I'd been driving Number One Son's Big Orange Truck – as long as he wasn't in the vehicle with me. He would have wanted to leap out the vehicle, chase down Bambi and immediately begin processing the critter right alongside the highway.

Fortunately, there wasn't any traffic when Bambi decided have a close encounter of a bumper kind with my car.

I drove on for about a half a mile, looking for a well-lighted place to stop so I could check the damage.

Turned out there was a decent-sized dent in the hood. And a big chunk of fur wedged between the hood and the chassis. That was it.

Next morning, as I headed to the Salt Mine for work, I looked around as I approached the spot where Bambi had decided to chance an encounter with several thousand pounds of potentially deadly metal.

Part of me, the disturbed part of me, wanted to see the mortal remains of a chunk of venison laying alongside the road. No such luck. I guess he (she?) showed me.

That made it twice in the last six or eight weeks that I've been fortunate in such a situation. Perhaps you'll recall my little adventure on the ice in January.

The Other Half, of course, had encouraging words for me when I got home to lunch last Friday.

"Did you make it home without hitting anything?" she asked.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

And while we're at it, here are a few other random thoughts. . .

. . .those 70-degree temperatures over the weekend were great. Can't wait 'til it snows again, though.

. . .it was nice to finally see some spring flowers in our yard. The Other Half picked three daffodils in the yard. She suggested that after weeks and weeks of winter, those three daffodils are the most beautiful flowers she's ever seen.

. . .did you know there was a song titled "When Its Peach Blossom-Time in Egypt"? Yup. Visit the Union County Museum in Cobden, where you can check out that peachy hit from Way Back When and some other stuff, too, like "He's Dreaming Of The Purple Hills of Egypt." Really.

. . .and, just in case you were wondering, and I know you were, Transylvania University's men's and women's basketball teams both made it into the NCAA postseason playoffs. Not The Big Dance, mind you. More like the junior high dance, I would suppose. Unfortunately, their bids for national championships came to a rather abrupt end. Oh, well.