The Right Start to the New Year

So, New Year's Eve I went to Ro's house (not to celebrate, mind you, because really I think it's kind of bizarre to celebrate New Year's.... hurray! we survived the year! whooohoooo!). And finally around 2:30ish I headed home.

Winding around Rt. 235, I saw a flash across the road. Wasn't sure what it was, dog, coyote, something...looked in the field and saw a deer. Cool. Always like wild animal sightings. Saw a bear once when I was leaving camp. It was right smack in the middle of camp road. Totally cool.

Anyway, continuing on towards my house, I turn onto my road, which is about three miles long. About halfway down, I saw *another* deer running across this person's lawn towards the road. So I slowed waaaaaaay down (and I was only going about 25 mph to start with). The deer paused, then ran AT MY CAR. It bounced off the rear passenger side with a pretty good-sized THUD, and ran away. I was seriously freaked out. Worried about the deer. Worried about my car. Wondering what the *hell* I was supposed to do. Continued to drive.

And then ANOTHER DEER friggin' ran out across the road in front of my car! I yelled out, "WHAT THE HELL! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!!?" It was like a deer convention out there, and I imagined they were all sitting around, drinking, you know, celebrating the New Year (hurray! we survived another year! whoooohoooo!), and some fool deer came up with the idea: "Hey! Next car that comes down the road, we all charge it! Me first!"

I did manage to make it the rest of the way home without further incident (like a little obstacle course of wildlife wasn't enough of an incident), and checked my car to find NO DAMAGE. At all. If I squinted my eyes just right, I could maybe possibly see something that could pass for a dent on the door, but it was faint and could have been there before. No blood. No hair. No indication that it ever happened. Deer ran away (I am praying that it was okay, nothing broken or anything), so there is nothing to prove that this was anything other than a hallucination on my part. (oh, GREAT. Not even a particularly *creative* hallucination!) I thought, Nobody is going to believe this one. But here it is, for your consideration.

What a way to start the New Year, eh? There's got to be a way to work this into my resolutions. Any suggestions? mk