Oh, Deer

I am not a hunter, but I have killed enough deer in the past to feed many a village. I could almost list "hitting deer with cars" as a hobby. Knock on wood, I haven't run into a deer for several years now, but Mrs. Smoot wasn't so lucky a couple weeks ago.

While I was on my trip to Louisiana, I got a mysterious text message from Little Smoot:

"no one was hurt so dont worry"

Hmmm. An interesting note for me to receive while I was 1,100 miles away, don't you think?

Later I learned that she had apparently sent a previous message that said something about the fact that they just smacked a deer with the car, and that Mrs. Smoot suggested that she should send me another note just to let me know that everyone was ok. But I never got the first note that mentioned the deer... just the "no one was hurt" message.

In any case, everyone was ok, and the deer left behind a lovely souviner dent for us to admire on the hood. I was surprised to learn that this was the first time Mrs. Smoot had hit a deer. I guess it was her turn, since I've hit entire herds of them before.

I think deer have some sort of fascination with our vehicles. I once ran into one in a construction zone on the Turnpike. I really messed up Mrs. Smoot's car one Thanksgiving. I also hit one just a few hundred feet from my first apartment years ago.

Ironically, the only damage that last one did was to knock off my "deer horns," which are little plastic whisteling devices designed to annoy deer and keep them from running into the path of cars. I'm sure the people who sell them laugh themselves silly every time some sucker buys a set.