"Hello, deer..."

My Thursday night commute home always seems to be a fight to stay awake. It's not the most visually stimulating route. It's full of trees, road, trees and more trees. As pretty as they are to look at, trees too can get boring...

I picked up lil man and started on the treck home. Declan was in the back munching on pretzel sticks and we were both listening to a great mix of fun, Declan-friendly songs. Kermit and Fozzie were just about to lead into the second chorus of "Movin' Right Along" when lo and behold a deer magically appears in front of my car. I put my foot on the brake and swerved to the left (the deer was crossing from left to right, plus there was no opposing traffic). My headlights traveled over the deer's backside, across empty road and then..."Oh look another deer".

I was no more than 3 feet away from them. I moved my foot from the brake to the accelerator and swerved back to the right a little bit, aiming for the narrow spot of empty road between them.

Woosh! Right between them.

Declan got the sense that something wasn't right because as soon as we cleared them and I slowed down to pull over, he started crying.

I pulled over, put on my four-ways and hopped out of the car. Walking around the back to get to the passenger rear door, I checked the driver side of my car for deer snot and the passenger side of my car for deer poop. It must have scared something out of them. Clean car...all the way around.

Also, oddly enough I saw a police car coming down the road toward me with its lights on. I thought, "Great...I almost hit 2 deer and my prize is a ticket for speeding."

I opened lil man's door and he was still crying a little bit. I asked him if he was ok and he replied with a little, shaky 'yeah'. Then I started smiling at him and asked him if he saw the deer. Again I got a 'yeah', but it was a lot more excited and no tears followed it. So I knew all was well.

By now, the police car had made a U-turn and was pulling in behind me. I walked back around and got into the car like a good little driver. The cop walked up to the door, asked if everything was ok and if I had hit a deer. Declan started to get a little fussy again, but I proceeded to tell him that I drove between them and didn't hit anything. He asked if the little guy in the back was ok too. I told him 'yes' and that was that. Back to his car he went.

I found it odd that the response time to my near accident was less than 4 seconds. However, as I drove about a 1/2 mile down the road, I saw another police car parked with its lights on, another car in front of it and a deer lying in the road. That answered my question.

So all in all, I'd say that this commute home takes first prize for most eventful. Let's hope it is never bumped down to second place.