The Deer Trifecta

A few days ago, I saw the most interesting saga unfold. I was driving to work and saw an armadillo dead in the middle of the road. I didn’t think anything of it. Since there is no shoulder on this busy road, it’s not really a place you can pull over to move it off the asphalt.  Needless to say, I saw it sitting there as I drove back home that evening. The next day on my way to work, I saw a buzzard eating the armadillo. On the way home that day, wouldn’t you know I saw a dead buzzard and a dead armadillo in that same spot? The next day, I saw another buzzard eating the dead buzzard that died eating the dead armadillo. Of course on the way home, I saw the second buzzard was now just a part of the pile… A big pile of roadkill. Gross. That got me thinking of a story that I haven’t told on the blog before.

It’s actually one of my favorite stories to tell in person. I wouldn't really say it's funny, it's just one those stories that I can get really into and act out in a really fun, intense way. So I just never felt like I could do it justice with writing alone. If you ask any of my close friends, they can confirm that I love to tell stories. It’s like my favorite thing to do. I get really into it. Some people describe themselves as hand talkers. I acknowledge that I’m a full body talker. I can’t tell a story sitting down. I physically feel the urge to walk around and dramatize every detail with my entire body :) So yeah, that’s why I’ve never talked about this one here before. I just feel I couldn’t do it justice. However, since I saw that big ole' pile of roadkill earlier this week, I guess that's a sign to just do it.

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I was a junior in high school. I remember it was December and on this night, it was freaking cold as crap. I was spending some time at high school crush’s house, when suddenly I noticed that I was already out past curfew, and I was about 20 minutes from the house. My dad was never mean about curfew, but he was the type of dad that sat waiting by the window until we got home. Plus I didn’t want to explain that I was at a girl’s house that late. So I jumped in the car and started to speed off home. As most of you know, there are a lot of backwoods roads in South Georgia. This happened to be one of them. I was flying down this road when suddenly the herd of deer jumps out in front of me. Not like 2-3, I’m talking like 7-8 deer. I try to swerve but still end up hitting one with the front bumper of my car. As anyone who has ever hit a deer with your car knows, it can be pretty intense. In my head, I was trying to process what just happened. I knew I needed to stop and check on the deer that I just hit; however, right when I’m ABOUT to hit the brakes I hear an insanely loud CRASH right next to my ear. So I turn my head and find myself looking eye to eye with another deer that had just rammed its head straight into my driver’s side window. This thing instantly died on impact. I’m just kind of in a state of shock because not only is the deer’s mutilated head in pretty much right next to my face spewing blood over all me and the car, but it’s neck broke and the rest of the body is repeatingly slamming into the side of car over and over due to the fact that I’m still speeding down this road. It all happened in a split second, so I try to compose myself and bring the car to a safe stop. Again, I’m about to hit the brakes when another deer jumps out, hits the front bumper, bounces off the car hood, and crashes through my front windshield and kind of pins me against the seat. Immediately, I slam on brakes and run off the side of the road.

So I’m just sitting there for a moment covered in blood & glass and surrounded by deer corpses. So I try to stumble out of the driver’s side door, but face to face deer’s lower body has been pinned under the car with its head still jammed in my window, so the door won’t open. I kind of skootch myself in between the center console and the bloody corpse that’s pinning me against the seat. Eventually I get close enough to the passenger side door that I just open it and kind of fall out with the deer on top of me. This is before most teenagers had cell phones, so I start to walk and look for a house that I can ask to use their phone. I passed two houses a little ways back, so those are kind of my only options. I knock on the first door a man answers sees me and immediately slams the door in my face and tells me to get off of his property. “Geez”, I think to myself “what a jerk”. 

So I walk to the next house and ring the doorbell. Since it’s getting close to midnight, I can tell I woke them up. Suddenly, I remember that I’m covered head to toe in blood so in an effort to reduce my serial killer vibe I take off my shirt. Probably not the smartest idea. Right when the elderly lady opens the door, I’m in the middle of deshirting, so it looks like I’m wearing some crazy blood mask. She screams and again slams the door in my face. I’m thinking that the police will be called soon so I just sit down and wait, but they never come. So about twenty minutes later, I bang on the second door again and try to explain to the lady what happened and why I look like a mass murderer standing on her doorstep. I’m begging this woman through her door to use her phone. Finally, she cracks the door and throws a corded phone hand piece at me and slams it back. She says she will dial a number for me from inside her house. So I’m standing on some stranger’s front porch, trying to yell a telephone number through her front door. Of course, she dials the wrong number and some stranger picks up. I figured I would just tell this stranger to call the police and have them come to this ladies house, but they need an address. When I ask the lady for her address, she throws open the door and jerks the phone back from me. I hear it lock and she screams at me to go away. Crap. 

I decide to walk back to the first house and knock again. The man opens the door and I just beg to use his phone, so he hands me a cordless phone (Thank God) and makes me stand on the porch (again with the door closed). I have no idea why, but even though I’m physically holding a phone in my hand, I have this idea that I need to find someone with a cell phone to call my house and talk to my dad. It was like when you look everywhere for your glasses only to find they are on your face. So I call the first people I can think of that I know have a cell phone (my crush’s parents). They show up in the middle of the night and were so kind to not point out that I had just called them on the phone to ask them to drive to meet me so I could borrow their phone. Hahaha. So I finally get ahold of my dad who asks if the car will still run. I answer yes, so he just says “Ok, throw all the deer in the trunk and drive home.” I am able to pry that one deer from under the car door and get it and the front windshield deer both into the trunk. (I couldn’t find the first one I hit). When I finally arrive home in the busted up car, my dad tells me to grab some coolers and we spend the rest of the night skinning the deer and icing the meat.

The next day I have the brightest idea (remember I was an idiot). I thought “I’m gonna make my crush a gift from those dead deer.” So, I go into our chicken yard, rummage through the gut/skin pile, find the tails, and cut them off with my pocket knife. I’m sitting on the porch with these two deer tails thinking what would be a romantic gift, when suddenly it hits me! I get a bucket, thread some string through the tails, tie them onto said bucket and “voila” I made a piggy bank! “She’s going to love this!” I thought to myself.  I delivered the bank and thought I was a pretty smooth operator until a few days later, when I find out that I stunk up their entire house with my now rotten meat, deer tail bank. 

Be Blessed,

Seth