From the Archives: The deer incident

10/27/2004 I have a really fun fall break story: So I went home, and ended up not accomplishing anything that I wanted to.  I knew it would happen, but I usually hope for the best.  The thing is that it is not really my fault that I didn't get any work done.  I spent pretty much the whole weekend going to my sister and brother's basketball games.  That is where my fun story comes in...... We were at Katie's game, three hours from home and were finally coming home at about eight.  I'm driving Mom's Tahoe because she doesn't feel like driving and I don't mind.  We are in the hills in the small windy roads surrounded by trees.   I come to the top of a hill which also happens to be in a curve in the road and I see a big brown thing (a deer) running across the road right toward us.  My sister yells "DEER" I slam on the brakes, but the deer also stalls for a second and the timing is just all wrong....I hit it...really hard.  It flew into the air and landed off of the side of the road.  Moment of silence for the deer please...............okay, moving on.  I pulled up to a driveway not to far up the road because the road doesn't have a shoulder.  This is a driveway to a trailer set back into the woods surrounded by cars and trucks.....did I mention that I watched "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" the weekend before?  Anyway my mom gets out and looks and says that the grill is broken, the bumper is dented, and a headlight is hanging out, but we should probably be able to drive it home.  At that moment the "low coolant" light comes on. We have busted the radiator. Mom wants to walk up to the trailer where we are and ask them to call a wrecker.  I think she is crazy and refuse to go, I mean it was really really dark and there was no one else around, remember I just saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Sooo Mom calls Dad, he tells us he is on his way, remember we are three hours from home.  Mom keeps telling him where she thinks we are which is not where I think we are but I keep my mouth shut because mom is a little excited, anyway it is this huge deal trying to figure out where we are.  Meanwhile the whole time Katie has her video camera and is "making a documentary about the whole thing"  I end up realizing that there is a Jct. sign right ahead and look on the map....I was right.  So Dad calls a wrecker and says he will pick us up there.  We turn on the hazard lights so that the wrecker can find us.  Just a little while later a van pulls into the driveway and a man gets out with this long beard a cigarette and a shirt that says "I'm gonna beat the devil with a big stick".  He asks if we need help.  My polite mother goes into the whole story and tells him that a wrecker is on the way....he lives in the trailer, so he goes home after talking about how dangerous this curve is and how stuff like that happens all the time.  Just a few minutes later this truck pulling a trailer with furniture on it starts to pull into the drive.  As he is slowing down a car comes around the curve and rear-ends him jamming the trailer into the back of the truck.  So those two vehicles also pull into the drive with us.  It turns out that the truck was stopping to help us.  The car was full of about 8 teenagers, so now there was really excited people everywhere, the man that lives in the trailer has come back out to see what is going on and is looking in and at everything with his flashlight and continues to talk about how dangerous a spot that is....the whole time Katie is taping the incident.  Dail, the wrecker man finally comes and that is a whole other funny thing, but I just can't describe it.  Anyway Dad finally got there and we were headed home by 10:30 (I am still trying to figure out how Dad got there so quickly!).  That is the fun story of fall break.  I killed my first deer and had my first car accident all at the same time.