Doe, a Deer...

Someone recently asked, via email, for my unfortunate Car-Meets-Deer story, and while I was responding, it occurred to me that I may never have actually typed the whole thing up before. It also reminded me that it's really kind of a funny story, so I thought I'd share it. Apropos of nothing, but hey, it's my blog.

I was driving home from work on a fairly high-traffic highway, on the Thursday night after deer-hunting season started (which in Minnesota typically means that all the deer are running around in places they shouldn't be...like under my car). Anyway, the silly animal with which I was about to become acquainted ran out into the road and was hit by another car, which threw it – still very much alive – in front of me. What followed can only be described as a sickening thump. The car scraped to a stop, still half in the road (incidentally, one of the morals of the story is that you should always carry road flares in your car…).

Well, the car was still running and sounded fine, but wouldn’t move forward or backwards. I called my dad (who could totally be like one of those guys on the Car Talk radio shows or something) and told him what happened. There wasn’t much he could do besides tell me he’d be there as soon as he could, which wasn’t reassuring, because I was about 45 minutes from home.

The driver of the other car had wandered over and asked if I was alright. I told him that I was okay, but for some reason, I couldn’t get the car to move any further off the road. He responded, “Umm…you do know that the deer is still under the car, right?” I had in fact failed to notice that, but it did explain a few things. He then tried unsuccessfully to move my car, and then we just stood there and waited for the police.

There is nothing more awkward than trying to make small talk with someone when your only connection to them is a dead animal lying under your car, bleeding all over the pavement. “So….how’s your car?” I asked, finally. “Totalled,” was the pained reply, “It’s new; doesn’t even have plates yet. It’s okay, though – it’s my anniversary, so at least I already have flowers in the car.” It was at this point that I remembered my rather unfortunate reaction to an adrenaline let-down: finding everything *really* funny. Whoops.

It was quite a while later that the police finally showed up. The cop walked slowly around my car, critically surveying the situation. “Huh,” he finally said. “Huh. Never seen that before.” Being unable to free car or deer, we stood there for a while longer. We were chatting about something when he suddenly stopped, walked up to the car, crouched down, picked up the deer’s leg, and let it drop limply. “Just checkin’,” he explained. “Sometimes you think they’re dead, and they come back to life.”

The challenge of the situation was too much for the fine men of the Blaine City PD to resist, and soon this had become a 4-police-car spectacle. After trying out many creative strategies, they finally admitted defeat. There was a tow truck on the way for the other car, so when it arrived, they just had it lift up my car first, so they could disentangle the deer. When the car was lifted up, the grisliness of the situation was finally revealed.

Once the deer was finally out of the way, I discovered that the worst damage done to my car was the fact that my battery had died while I was waiting for the police to show up.

So yes. That’s the story. Slightly disgusting, but it still makes me smile, a year and a half later. ;-)