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"ROAD TRIPS" by THE OLD SQUID |
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"Road Trips" by The Old Squid
B.A.D.D.
posted 10/25/02 How about cougars? As long as they're allowed to drink on campus the students rarely cause trouble outside of Pullman and the wild variety take less than a dozen people every year. This could change as the wild cats have proven remarkably proficient at breeding now that hunting with dogs has been banned. Turns out that the cats are also dog lovers and so are attracted to the suburbs where there is a plentiful supply of French poodles to snack on. Unfortunately, the student cougars are proficient breeders too but nothing can be done about them as hunting WSU students with dogs is surprisingly illegal too.
Rattlesnakes? Not even close. Give up? OK, here it is. The most dangerous non-human animal in North America is: Bambi!! Yup, over 150 people a year are ATTACKED and KILLED by those big brown eyed deer! I'm not making this up. During the fall rut, deer become pugnacious and will attack anything that moves. If its another deer, they butt heads and after a few minutes, the one without health insurance calls it quits and goes off to the deer version of a sports bar to nurse his headache. The winner stays to breed but enough on that subject as this is a family on-line paper. If they attack a human, we dont fare even as well as other deer! Of course there's more to this story, much more and it involves a secret conspiracy and a plot to end life as we know it. This investigation of mine started when a friend of mine hit a deer on his motorcycle a few weeks ago. He survived, bruised and limping. The deer wasn't found so we can assume that it survived too. After that encounter, he decided to form a club that will be known as B.A.D.D. This stands for Bikers Against Dumb Deer. Later, at an exclusive local Men's Social Club I attend on Friday nights, the talk turned to recent close encounters we'd all had with deer and it turned out that there was huge increase lately. I immediately suspected a shadowy conspiracy and so I called a well known animal communicator on another island to help me in getting to the bottom of this. I asked her to "listen in" with her telepathic powers and give me insight on what deer were thinking. She called right back and told me that the deer were thinking of food and sex! I told her that this would describe most of my male friends too and that I thought that she could do much better for the money I gave her. After some prompts and questions about my theory she said that she would call back the next day after more intensive and expensive research. Here is what she said.
"The deer are part a well organized animal anti-technology movement and want to see all powered vehicles off the streets. To accomplish this, they recruit fawns to join suicide cadres with stories of a heaven filled with tasty rose gardens and helpless gardeners locked in their houses. The deer are encouraged to throw themselves in front of any moving vehicle." She then told me that this information would cost $500 and that if I didn't pay, the deer would target me next! I replied that I was a born-again-skeptic and that I felt her price was rather high. I then took my research to the Internet and found the following information. Deer are most active one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise. This is when they are moving from resting to feeding and these are the most dangerous times to be driving in deer country. In addition to those times, there is a sharp increase in collisions with deer in the months of October and November. In fact, almost half of all accidents with Bambi occur in those evening hours in those two months. Deer will jump out of thick brush along traditional deer paths so pay attention to "Deer Crossing" signs. They are creatures of habit and will use a narrow area to cross highways. This increases you chance of a close encounter in those areas. Pay attention! Know your enemy! I have one friend who has hit two deer on his motorcycle! He's a marked man. As an aside, he also chides me about driving too fast. I like to point out to him that if he drove faster, he would have been past those deer before they crossed the road. Another friend hit a deer. Killed it and yet managed to stay upright on his damaged bike. He rode home, got his hunting knife and went back to dress out the undamaged half of the deer. Vengeance is sweetest when served BBQed. As for myself, now that I know the worst times and places, I'll avoid those spots if I can and if I can't avoid them, I'll drive very pro-life. I've avoided two kamikaze Does on the West Side road this year because I was watchful and keeping the bike out of warp speeds. Even in a car, I watch out because of the serious damage one of our runt blacktail can do to body work. One day, a good friend on Orcas warned me about a deer crossing on the hill just before the ferry landing. The warning was provident. As I approached the landing, I remembered her warning and looked up just in time to see a buck skidding down the hill. He slammed on his brakes and I did the same and we missed by inches. Be careful out there folks. It's a jungle and Bambi's out ta get ya! Join B.A.D.D. now! |
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