This is where my son comes in. He had the forethought to glance behind us (not an easy feat considering the medieval car seat I make him wear out of fear of idiots texting while driving but that's a whole other blog post). "You killed that bird," he exclaims. I peek in the rear view mirror, not excited about witnessing my destruction, and verify that there is indeed one very dead blackbird in the middle of the road. Apparently he had gotten a bit airborne from the impact and it had taken a moment for him to come back to earth.
Of course my son felt the need to tell everyone we came into contact with for the next twenty-four hours that I killed a bird. I would pipe up with, "But I had the right of way!" I still feel quite terrible about it and would surely send a basket of condolence worms if only I knew his families address.
"We shall avenge our brother by crapping on Stephanie's Jeep anytime she drives anywhere for the rest of her life!"
Have you ever hit an animal and felt incredibly guilty about it?
xo,
Stephanie
http://www.stephaniehale.com/
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8 comments:
Yikes-how awful!
My husband hit a bird once and it ended up in the wheel well--which, we didn't notice until the insanely awful stench of decaying bird filled up the garage!! And then he had to remove it . . . Everyone lost that day.
Oh, Steph, yes. Early morning recently, on my street, a squirrel darted out from between two parked cars. No time to swerve, slow or anything. Luckily, my husband was home and I got him to go "clean it up." I felt sooooo bad. Like you, wanted to apologize to the family. Make a donation in his name or something...
Sorry!
Ugh, I hit a cat on my way to work one day. It literally bolted out of nowhere: such a sickening sound. Then it ran to the other side of the road and collapsed. I had to drive by it everyday for like, a week. I felt SOOO pathetic.
I don't like killing things. Unless they're bugs and they're in my house.
Ugh, no fun, Steph! I think I have one squirrel death on my conscience. I had a friend in high school who would lift her feet anytime she drove over roadkill as kind of a sign of respect. I still do that today. =)
You have my sympathy, Steph!
When I used to live in a foresty part of New Jersey, we found that deer hung out by the side of the road, and waited till our car was close, and only then decided to cross the road. Lucky for us, we were onto them, and never quite hit a deer!
Squirrels did the same thing. I'm sure the eerie explanation for this behavior was on X-Files once....
One night while returning home from a lecture on "Human Encroachment into Wildlife Habitats" at the University of Idaho, I was driving past a family friends farm when out of the darkness sprang a deer. At 55mph, the deer got the worst of it. As I got out of my truck to check the damage to both the deer and the truck, I found the doe not too far away in the ditch.
The next day, my father was talking to the friend whose farm I had been driving past, and he told my dad that he had seen that doe in his fields with 2 fawns -- she had had twins that spring! Later, he told me that he never saw the fawns again.
I think I'd take a dead bird hanging over my head rather than this. But that's just me! :)
Yes. My ex-husband hit a deer when we were driving home late in the country one night. It was very sad because it was injured and had to be euthanized. So sad.
Thanks for commiserating everyone!
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