Dear Deer, I Hate You.

I used to think that deer were cute and Bambi like. I could not understand why anyone would want to take a gun and blow their little Bambi heads off. I understand now. Give me a gun. Hunting season should be extended to year around. I don’t care if PETA puts me on their Most Wanted Animal Hater List.

The night before last a Bambi deer almost killed me and my husband, came thisclose to completely destroying a pretty cool car, and put an extreme crimp in my one and only vacation I'll have with my husband before I leave for Abu Dhabi.

I fucking hate that deer, and she’s dead beside the road somewhere near Tallulah Gorge, Georgia. 

Jim and I set off for the mountains to enjoy some much needed time away. We were so excited to be able to just sit and talk with no interruptions that we didn’t pay much attention to the road and got a little off course. I looked up and told Jim, “This doesn’t look right”. He pulled over and got out the map. He studied it for a second and then told me we had missed a turn off a few miles back. No big deal. We weren’t in any hurry. Even though it was a little after nine p.m, the sun hadn’t set yet, but it was getting to be a little twilightish.

We turned around to get back on track and I got out my droid to check Facebook.  Jim yelled “Shit, a deer!”. I looked up and all I saw was a huge side of brown fur covered carcass imploding the windshield. One deep brown eye stared at me for a flicker in time, the windshield seemed to breathe in, and thousands of tiny shards of glass flew at me. I looked down to protect my eyes. Jim pulled over to the side of the road quickly. We looked at each other. He brushed his hands over the lap of his shorts, nicking his hands on the glass, and asked, “Are you hurt?”  I took a second to access the situation and told Jim I was okay.

The windshield was caved in. Glass glittered on my lap, at my feet, on the front of my shirt. I opened the door, got out and shook most of it off.  Jim punched the BMW roadside assistance service button and proceeded to get help.  The lady on the other end of the call asked Jim if there were any landmarks around. I told Jim, “Tell her LOTS of trees.. that’s all, just trees”. 

The front of the car, if you didn’t look at the windshield, didn’t look too bad: a missing driver’s side headlight and a missing front grill. Blood and fur covered the shattered glass, but the hood of the car was untouched. The only sign on the hood that anything was amiss were the  fluffs of fur that were scattered like a shedding  German Shepard dog had curled on the hood for a nap. 

I walked back to find the deer lying in the ditch dead about 50 yards behind the car. She looked like she was asleep.  My guess is by the time she hit the ground she was dead.  I wanted to kick her dead carcass, but I had sandals on.

Twenty five minutes later a deputy showed up and wrote up his report. After about thirty minutes he had to leave us on the side of the road to respond to a kidnapping.  Jim had talked to the tow truck company who said they were sending assistance, but since the driver was coming from Norcross, Georgia, it would be a while before he arrived. We waited and waited. I spent the time digging shards of glass out of my shirt and bra, and then carefully searched for stray pieces in my hair. Two hours later Jim’s cell phone rang. It was the tow truck driver who told Jim that he was about sixty miles away, but he was “hauling ass” to get to us. Thirty-five minutes later, the tow truck driver phoned again to say he had just been pulled over by the police for speeding and would be later than he first told us.  A car zipped past in the dark, and then turned around heading right at us. The headlights blinded me. I told Jim, “Great, it’s a meth dealer and he is going to bash our heads in with a tire iron and rob us of the $25.00 cash in my wallet.” Thankfully, it wasn’t a crazed meth dealer, but another deputy. He stepped out of his car, “You folks still here?”. He had heard about the suicidal deer on his radio shortly after it killed itself, and had assumed we’d be long gone by now.  Twenty minutes later the tow truck driver pulled up. 

So, three hours after we hit the deer, the car was loaded onto a tow truck and we were on our way to Duluth to drop the car off at the BMW dealership. 

We arrived at the dealership  a little after two a.m, and after unloading  the car, the driver then very kindly dropped us, and our entire bevy of vacation luggage, off at the nearest Holiday Inn.  Jim and I hauled everything into the deserted lobby, but there was no one at the desk. A little sign did read HAVE STEPPED AWAY FROM DESK. WILL RETURN SHORTLY.  We waited and waited. Jim rang the little bell on the desk. "Shortly" wasn't arriving. I was sleepy, I was tired, I was stressed, and I was pissed off at a dead deer. 

I started walking up and down the adjoining hallways, banging my hands loudly on the walls, yelling, “Hellooooo? Anyone here? Anyone at all?” No response. I was beginning to get a little freaked out and was starting to imagine that I was inside the novel, “The Shining” and that the Holiday Inn was in reality The Overlook Hotel.  I was almost expecting to see the words “REDRUM” appear in dripping crimson blood on the wall, when a Gwinnett County police officer entered the lobby. My relief vanished when I realized that he was just using the Holiday Inn as his potty pit stop. He came back out of the men’s room wiping his hands on his pants.  Jim and I explained that we had been in the lobby about twenty minutes and couldn’t find the desk clerk.  The police officer started pounding on the doors in the hallways (I already did that, sir!) and he was about to open the door behind the hotel desk (what if the clerk was inside, bound with rope, his throat slit by a crazed meth addict???), when the clerk walked around the other corner as if nothing had happened. “May I help you?” he asked.

 I wanted to scream, “Damn right you can! A suicidal deer threw itself into our windshield tonight, law enforcement abandoned us in the middle of nowhere to respond to a kidnapping, I thought a meth addict was going to kill us, our tow truck driver was pulled over for speeding, and I thought you were murdered!”  But I didn’t. I just smiled at him, sat down on the couch and waited for Jim to check us in. 

Yesterday morning, after a night in The Wannabe Overlook Hotel, we rented a SUV at Enterprise, which we had to exchange an hour later because the air conditioner wasn’t working and it was 104 degrees outside. We ended up with a Tahoe that makes it feel remarkably as if I am riding around in a double wide trailer.  It has a great air conditioner, by the way. We ate bad Korean food for lunch and then headed to mom and dad’s cabin in Hiawassee; our Friday night intended destination. 

I am staying in the mountains until Tuesday or Wednesday. I might not go home for weeks.  And I dare a deer to jump in front of that Tahoe. It’s a freaking tank.