Road Kill

I bet when people see this title, they'll beat a path to my virtual door.

Here in the rural south it is a common thing to see something in or on the side of the road that's been hit by at least one car.

I have only hit one thing in my driving years (that I am aware of - bugs and stuff don't count). A puppy was running to and fro, all over the road. I came to a complete stop until the pup ambled off into the weeds on the other side of the road. Just as I started up, he came flying back into the road and I bumped him with my tire. He yelped and went running back up the bank, into a yard.

I started crying, but went on to work. As soon as I got there, I told them what had happened, and that I was going back to that house and see if the puppy belonged to them and if I needed to take it to the vet.

A man came out of the house. The puppy would not come out of his dog  house, but the man said he'd seen it and it was fine, not to worry. I gave him my name and number, but he never called me.

I hope I was more traumatized than the dog.

Now, a deer hit me once.

It had come across the road, and was standing with that fearful look in its eyes, so I stopped. She went on down the bank. Then she bolted back across the road and slammed into the rear of my car! I was terrified she'd skidded under the car and was lying there, so I eased the door open, but she was gone on across the road.

She never called to see if I needed to see the vet.

I worked with a guy who had a very sensitive belly, and if he saw blood of any kind, he threw up. We were on a field trip with a van load of clients, when up ahead we could see something red and gory looking up ahead, in the middle of the road. He started gagging and looking for something to vomit in. As we approached the 'roadkill' we discovered it was a dead watermelon.

He stopped gagging immediately. I guess  his sensitivity did not extend to killed fruit.

A therapist I worked with left early one morning to go to a meeting across the mountain. He came back that afternoon and looked upset. I asked him what was wrong, and he sat down, all sad faced, and told his tale.

Seems that morning he was going around a particularly severe curve on the mountain and two stray dogs were in the middle of the road, eating roadkill. Well, he didn't get stopped fast enough and he hit them.

They say you are what you eat.

It gets worse.

On the way back across the mountain, he came into that same curve. A buzzard was eating the dogs....and he hit and killed the buzzard.

That man was never the same.

My grandmother, on the other hand, drove like a race car driver, swerving all over the roads, trying to kill poor opossums. I don't know what they ever did to her.

Sometimes hitting things are life endangering. Friends hit a big old bear on the way to church. The bear ran off, wounded for sure, and their truck was dented badly. Luckily they didn't wreck. Unfortunately, the bear was hurt and dangerous.

And it seems some people want to be roadkill. They walk with traffic, in black clothes, at nighttime, on the side of the road. Let me tell you, it may not  hurt them, but they've almost given me a heart attack!

And these bicycle riders in their unbelievably tight clothes? Are they crazy? Riding on roads that are so curvy  they are invisible until you are upon them.

If any of them favor a possum, they better watch out. My grandmother could be just around the corner.