Suicidal Woodland Creatures

Long ago,

in the college days of yore,

a legend was born on a dark, star-lit night in Price Canyon.
The legend, prior to the legend-making incident, was an ordinary poor college student car, driven by an ordinary male college student and navigated by five (or six or seven) (extra)ordinary female college students.

Said students set off in the late night hours, headed for city lights by way of Price Canyon. The music was fresh, the conversation invigorating and the road pleasantly free from debris.

But then they hit it.

A veritable speed bump in the middle of a deserted highway.

Heads knocked together, backsides were separated from car seat and that poor, ordinary college student car experienced its first moments of air time before plunging back to the road,

one tire at a time.

Five (or six or seven) pairs of stunned eyes turned to the back window for a glimpse of the offending speed bump.

There it was--the lifeless form of a deer, stretched out horizontally across two lanes from an earlier and quite unlucky encounter with a moving vehicle.

(Picture of victim taken prior to evening of incident.)

No longer ordinary, the poor college student’s car was hereafter known as

Deerslayer,

though, looking back, it seems unfairly dubbed, since it was not responsible for the deer’s actual passing, only the disrespect of jumping the poor, deceased cloven-hoofed animal.

I thought the story ended there, that Deerslayer quietly went down in history.

But such is not the case.

Apparently, Deerslayer has progeny. And we drive it.

Deer vengeance has been poured out, brutally and expensively upon Deerslyer’s only known child, our Toyota Camry.

Now, I realize we live on a mountain and woodland creatures of all shapes and sizes reside here. However, couldn’t they hold a meeting or send a memo to all their beloved friends and family, warning them of the dangers that lie Beyond the Shoulders?

Why not use scare tactics, such as a slide show featuring pictures of those who have been taken before their time?
(I don’t think they've caught on to the implications of this...)

Or maybe woodland life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And they jump.
On purpose.

Whatever the case, that deer of yore, sprawled across the highway, has been unsuccessfully avenged by one of its family members in the North Country.


A few weeks ago, as we were about to turn onto our street from a lovely evening on the town, a rather large and intimidating buck, full of vengeance, jumped at our moving car from the shoulder of the road, leaving his rather large and intimidating head print in the passenger door

and ripping asunder our mirror, taking it with his tumbling antlers.

He rolled down the entire side of the car,

leaving hoof dents and prying the bumper from the car’s body before landing in a heap in the road.

Luckily, this story has a happy ending for both victim and aggressor.

Bucky shook it off and limped into the night, nothing but silver paint- scuffed pride and a migraine to show for his vengeful quest.

Camry checked herself into the hospital for a week and her bumps and bruises are a thing of the past.

But she swears if she sees Bucky….