Wildlife

Fair Warning:  This post contains stories about dead animals.

I was talking to my sister N on the phone last evening; she was relating an experience she had with a raccoon.  The raccoon was on the second story deck of her house, and put it paws up on the sliding glass door, when she realized that she had never seen a live raccoon before.  How can that be you ask?

Well we grew up in the country; wildlife, though it was all around us, had enough room to avoid us.  Does that make sense?  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a live raccoon either, I’ve seen plenty of dead ones.  Dead raccoons, opossums, coyotes, etc… The wild animals didn’t come up to our house in the country… they got in front of our cars.  They are mostly accidents, I say mostly, because sometimes you aim for the moles….just saying. 

I’ve never hit an animal intentionally.  The first animal I ever hit was a turtle.  I don’t know how it happened, it was daylight and it’s not like the turtle ran out in front of me.  I just don’t think I swerved enough. I felt pretty bad, so I turned around and went back to make sure it was dead, and then I dragged it off the road.  It was a big turtle.

The second animal I ever hit with a car was, and this may upset people, a kitten.  What’s even more upsetting, is this was the forth kitten I’d accidentally killed.  The first 3 (wow, that sounds awful!) was when I was little.  My cousin, my little brother and I were playing house with the kittens.  We put them in the “playpen” which was a cooler.  We left the drain hole open and the top, but we went off to play somewhere else and the wind blew the lid closed.  So we learned an important lesson that day, the drain hole doesn’t let in enough oxygen for 3 kittens.  Talk about a mental picture that I’d like to delete from my childhood memory.

The third animal I ever hit made me feel the worst.  It was not someone’s beloved pet nor did it total the car.  I hit a skunk…I’m not joking when I say I felt bad.  So bad, I had to stop the car and throw-up.  It was awful.  Right afterwards they wouldn’t let me park right behind the theatre when I went for rehearsals….I had to park clear down the street.  Even months later, I could smell skunk when I started the car. 
Many of my memorable animal experiences are with dead animals.  But I will spare you the stories of the baby rabbits, and the chick that got loved to death, the deer that could have killed my brother.  Some, too, are with live animals.  Like Elroy my dog, the foal born on Mother’s Day, the many kids (as in baby goats) I’ve seen born, and the deer that walked right passed my brother and I as we waited for the bus, those are memorable too.  

Perhaps Wild"life" wasn't the best title.