Oh, deer!

Kiel appeared in front of the Reference Desk where I was sitting, his eyes bugging out of his head, his words breathless, his body agitated, his face white. "I almost got creamed!" he sputtered. "Deer! It was right there."

I tried not to laugh at his animation. From what I could gather, this was serious. He had almost hit a deer with the car. I wonder about letting that boy drive Baby so much. He was nearly gasping for breath. "I must have deer hair in the grill. It was right there!" he put his hand in front of his eyes with millimeters to spare.

"I don't know how I missed it! Drew ducked. I yelled. I could see its eyes. It was there and then it was gone. I'm late." and he dashed off to class. It took several minutes for the air around the desk to settle down. Kiel's angst was palpable. I remember hitting deer at various junctures of my life.

Once when I was young, our family made a trek to California to see my Dad's Dad. In the pre-dawn gray of a foggy Sunday morning in North Dakota, our snazzy new maroon station wagon hit a huge buck. Our car careened into the ditch on the opposite side of the road, the small trailer we were towing rolling over and over behind us, smashing itself to smithereens.

I was sleeping in the back, jolted awake by one of my siblings who landed on top of me. We slid to a halt and sat for a minute. Slowly, Dad got out to inspect the damage, Mom telling us to lie still and be quiet. No one was hurt except the deer who had met an early demise.

With great patience and a lot of water being poured into a defunct radiator, we got to the nearest small town and ended up on the red stools of a local diner eating breakfast while Dad tried to find help to repair the damaged radiator on the one day of the week when nothing was open. Eventually, Dad purchased an old army tent and we kept on going, dents and all.

Yes, a deer can certainly startle you from the complacency of normal life. This time Kiel was fortunate. Let's hope he keeps some small bit of the adrenalin rush when he drives during peak deer hours. Radar on, peripheral vision in full force. I'm not in the mood for venison. Not tonight at least.