Like a Deer In Your Headlight
I have an old car.
How old?
Not Friday night cool classic car show in town old, more like ‘why doesn’t that car have any hubcaps?’ old.
My car is a two-thousand-seven blue Toyota Corolla that has over three-hundred-thousand mile on it. You may ask, ‘Why don’t you know the exact mileage number?’
Easy.
Two years ago, when the odometer hit two-hundred-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine miles, it stopped rolling over.
Much like ‘how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop’, the world may never know the exact mileage.
Friends and Family tell me to get a new car. I will, I assure them, but I love not having a car payment every month.
However, what happened the other day might have made that decision for me.
One thing you should know is that where I live, there is no quick way to get to a highway. Either I take a perpetually congested Route 206, which has been under construction, one way or another, the entire twenty-five years I’ve lived here (sadly, that is not an exaggeration).
The other is to take back roads and weave my way through to a major highway.
I chose the latter.
A friend of mine told me I drive like a turtle (as a criticism), but I interpreted her comment as slow and steady wins the race as a good thing.
So, I did not speed on the back road that day when a deer I did not see smashed into the front of my car.
In fact, I never actually saw a deer, but did see four deer legs as they crossed, left to right, in front of my eyes. I braced for the ‘thump thump’ as I rode over the carcass. But, that ‘thump thump’ never happened. Either the body was tossed into the trees, or that sonofabitch ran back into the woods on his own.
I didn’t stop, and when I finally did, the driver’s side door fought me when I opened it. Left side of bumper hung just off the ground, headlight destroyed, and left front panel formed an accordion just above my tire.
The funny part is, none of the above would have happened except for a curve that life threw in my path (literally).
Early on the day of the crash, I was on the phone with a friend (and sometime contributor to my blog), and had a conversation about ‘what if?’
For example, what if I hadn’t gone into that restaurant, I wouldn’t have met the love of my life.
Just how life turns on a dime, either by are own decisions, or the actions of others.
I hadn’t plan to stay on that back road, I planned to make a right at the next light.
A minute or so before that turn, I passed a man on a bicycle in my lane.
Several cars in front of me slowed down to make that right turn at the light. When I slowed down to accommodate those cars’ actions, the bicyclist passed me just as the light turned yellow.
With the light yellow, and a car directly behind me, I could not stop to make my intended right.
Why?
Because that damn man on a bike crossed directly in front of my intended turn.
So I had to go straight, which led me to hit that fated deer.
Let’s think about it for a second.
What if I did stop to let the bicyclist pass, and got hit from behind by the car that wanted to beat the yellow light?
Not good, but no deer.
What if the man on the bicycle pedaled just a bit slower (or faster) so as not to be in my path at the exact moment?
Good, life and car go on to live another day.
What if the deer found a mate, settled down, got married, had kids, and was just then sitting down for dinner?
Good for the deer, good for everybody.
Life is full of ‘what if?’ moments, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred we never notice them because there rarely is a definable outcome if we went the other way.
For example, what if I never started this blog, you all would have missed out reading my posts that you love so much, right?
Right?
