Deer, Old Dad

I like to take note of little events in real life which, if I saw in a movie, would usually make me chuckle and think, That wouldn’t really happen…

Because these things do happen. Greg and Emily post about them all the time.

And they’re good to keep in mind, as a writer.

Like the other day when my dad hit a deer.

I grew up in Vermont and my parents, my sister and her family and my little brother and his family still live there. There are a lot of deer in Vermont. And they haven’t quite figured out the whole moving vehicle thing yet, as a species.

My mom is down here with us this week and so my dad, being a man, decided to go over to my brother’s house for dinner, I’m guessing largely so that he wouldn’t have to thaw out another frozen meal my mom no doubt stocked the freezer with. So much work to thaw after all.

So he’s flying up County Road –- yes it’s called that –- in his pickup in the darkness of a countryside evening (sounds like a Garth Brooks song, don’t it?) and a deer bursts from the side of the road and he slams into it.

Now this can be very dangerous. Not as dangerous as moose, but dangerous. Moose, man, those things kill people all the time. They’re super tall, with skinny legs and they’re wicked heavy –- so if you hit them, their little legs snap and their huge body crashes through your windshield... and you’re dead.

This happened to the father of one of my mom’s students a couple years ago. It happens a lot.

Deer can screw you up too, if they come through the windshield -- and even if they don’t they can cause a wreck that can screw you up.

Sorry, one more aside, then back to the story. In high school up there I worked in a car wash. Worst. Job. Ever. Washing cars in Vermont in the winter, when car washes in Vermont are busiest because people wanna get all the road salt off their cars. My clothes would literally freeze.

Holy shit, these tangents are killing me. But what I was saying about the car wash is that a lot of people had these deer whistles attached to their side mirrors. They were designed to blow a high pitch whistle when the car was moving and there was air flowing through them, the thought being the whistle would ward off deer.

Two things: I bet it didn’t work, and they almost never survived the trip through the car wash anyway. God knows how many of those damn things I cleaned up from the bay while smoking pot with my best friend Jim during breaks.

(Maybe not the worst job ever, come to think of it…)

Back to my dad.

So he hits the deer on the passenger front side -– big bam, scared old man, much more scared deer. Dad stops, the deer’s gone.

Exhale. Continue drive up County Road to Patrick’s house.

There, he checks his truck, sees lots of damage, grabs Patrick and goes back to see if the deer is there, see if they can help it.

Aren’t they sweet?

No sign of the deer, so Dad calls the State Police, as you’re supposed to do. This is where, to me, it gets funny.

The dispatcher takes Dad’s info, then says she’ll report it to animal control. She then asks, “If we find the deer and it’s freshly dead, do you want us to bring it to you?”

So: kill a deer with your car in Vermont… get meat for the winter!

Dad declined, by the way.

Okay, it probably wasn’t worth all that reading of meandering prose, but it does tell me that suspension of disbelief needn’t be that difficult. The world’s a funny place…